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Audubon’s Birds of America
In the 1800’s John James Audubon broke ground by making life-size illustrations of all the birds in America. The portraits provided a groundbreaking guide to the natural world and are equally valuable today – as works of art, and as a history of American bird species.
Audubon is a well-known name but, perhaps, the work of John James Audubon is not well-known. But his life-sized paintings of American birds have had a profound effect on the study of natural history. In the 1800’s, the collection of Audubon’s large portraits were made into a book called Audubon’s Birds of America. One of the complete original sets is housed at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Producer Laurie Sanders went to have a look.