“Seeing Audubon” – A Special Exhibit On Display Through April 3

If you’re looking to spark some creativity, come explore the various bright prints presented in the Chazen Museum’s newest exhibition “Seeing Audubon: Robert Havell, Jr. and The Birds of America,” on display now through April 3, 2022.

John James Audubon’s The Birds of America and his own evocative biography have been analyzed by scholars in multiple fields and mythologized within American frontier history for decades. It has not been thoroughly considered, however, through the lens of its primary printmaker, Robert Havell, Jr.. Havell Jr. printed The Birds of America in his London shop between 1827 and 1838, transforming Audubon’s original watercolor prints into the now-famous gargantuan book, referred to by many as The Double-Elephant Folio. 

The Chazen Museum exhibit, “Seeing Audubon,” presents the ongoing research of Professor Emily Arthur of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Art Department. Professor Arthur explores and works to reverse-engineer the various techniques and methods Harvell Jr. used to print The Birds of America. The exhibit displays multiple items taken from the holdings of Special Collections, that Professor Arthur compiled in hopes of relaying her artistic findings to the public. These items include two volumes of the Thordarson Collection double-elephant folio set of The Birds of America and related titles on science, natural history, and printmaking. 

Professor Arthur, and her co-curator Robin Rider, curated the exhibition with valuable support from Chazen Museum project assistant and art history graduate student Katherine Gallman. The time and effort that colleagues at the Chazen, especially Katherine Alcauskas, Kirstin Pires, and Kate Wanberg, devoted to the project was also quite beneficial in bringing the exhibit to fruition. Colleagues in Special Collections, especially Carly Sentieri, also contributed important expertise and encouragement.  

Generous support for this Chazen Museum exhibition has been provided by the Brittingham Wisconsin Trust. Several items from Special Collections displayed in this exhibition were acquired with support from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education (OVCRGE). This was made possible through the Library Collections Enhancement Initiative (LCEI), with funding from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Many thanks to Leia Verfuerth and Linying Wu for facilitating complicated LCEI acquisitions.  

Upcoming events related to the “Seeing Audubon: Robert Havell, Jr. and The Birds of America,” exhibit will be posted periodically. Be sure to also plan to see the next exhibit in Special Collections, “Given to Remember: The Holocene Extinction in Print,” curated by Carly Sentieri and now open as well.