The first European artist-naturalists to tour North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were awed not only by the continent’s varying landforms but also by the animals they encountered: vast herds of buffalo, majestic horned stags, a bewildering variety of birds. The earliest sketches depicting these fauna began the remarkable tradition of wildlife in American art, a tradition that evolved along with the United States as a nation and still thrives today. For more than two decades, the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming, has honored and sustained this tradition by assembling the most comprehensive collection of paintings and sculptures portraying North American wildlife in the world. Wildlife in American Art presents for the first time a generous sampling of the museum’s holdings, charts the history of this enduring theme in American art, and explores the evolving relationship between Americans and the natural resources of this continent. More than a museum catalogue, this volume offers descriptions of individual artists in the collection as well as in-depth, informative essays about what the natural environment has meant to Americans over time―untamed wilderness, sublime creation, endless resource, threatened habitat. Author and art historian Adam Duncan Harris also describes how these meanings have played out in painting and sculpture over the past two centuries. More than 125 full-color illustrations highlight the entire range of the museum’s collection, from the western wilds of George Catlin to the desert drama of Georgia O’Keeffe. Also included are elegant birdstones carved by ancient Americans, exquisite avian artwork by John James Audubon, epic western scenes by Albert Bierstadt, idealistic depictions of unspoiled wilderness by Carl Rungius, and modern takes on the subject by Andy Warhol, Paul Manship, and Robert Kuhn. By bringing together and comparing works of unmatched beauty and majesty, this volume gives to a salient theme in American art the attention it has long deserved.

Wildlife in American Art: Masterworks from the National Museum of Wildlife Art

Arts & Photography

Harris, Adam Duncan

Individual Artists

University of Oklahoma Press

History & Criticism

For more than forty years, George McLean has lived in a stone farmhouse on 100 acres of land in Grey County, Ontario. On his daily walks, he looks for a moment that will inspire him — the first step in a process that can take up to a year to yield a single painting. McLean's densely layered depictions of the natural world emerge directly from his intense interest in wildlife. In this sumptuous book, Virginia Eichhorn, Adam Duncan Harris, and Tom Smart examine the development of McLean's art and trace his varied influences, from early 20th-century wildlife artists Carl Rungius and Bruno Liljefors to Andrew Wyeth. Connecting with past traditions while resonating with contemporary audiences, McLean's work, along with that of many realists before him, reflects a shared sense of what it means to be North American. Illustrated with more than 60 colour reproductions, the publication of George McLean: The Living Landscape coincides with the opening of an accompanying international touring exhibition of McLean's work at the Tom Thomson Gallery in Owen Sound.

George McLean: The Living Landscape

Smart, Tom

Eichhorn, Virginia

Goose Lane Editions

Wild Work: Animal Drawings by Alexander Calder

Alexander Calder

National Museum of Wildlife Art

Presenting forty major oil paintings by George Catlin from the mid-late 1830s, this volume re-examines the legacy of this complex artist. Many of Catlin's paintings were produced following his 1832 expedition down the Missouri River, past the prairie lands of Oklahoma, where he witnessed the landscape blackened by millions of bison. On one level Catlin's paintings offer an insight into nineteenth-century American ideas about the land and animals of the continent. But he was also the first to champion the notion of a national park to protect the buffalo and Native American people, that he portrayed so vividly in his paintings.Accompanies a major travelling exhibition: National Museum of Wildlife Art, Jackson Hole, WY, May 10, 2013–August 25, 2013; Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA, October 1, 2013–December 29, 2013; Wichita Art Museum, KS, February 1, 2014–May 11, 2014; Mennello Museum of American Art, Orlando, FL, October 4, 2014–January 1, 2015; Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston Salem, NC, February 12, 2015–May 3, 2015

George Catlin's American Buffalo

GILES

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Harris, Adam Duncan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Harris, Adam Duncan