Past Exhibits: > Beneath a Wild Sky
Beneath a Wild Sky
February 7, 2020–January 3, 2021
Once an amazing diversity of birds—some in breathtaking abundance—inhabited the vast forests and plains of North America. But starting around 1600, species began to disappear--as humans altered habitats, over-hunted, and introduced predators. The extinction of abundant species like the Great Auk, Passenger Pigeon, Heath Hen, and Carolina Parakeet occurred within the past 150 years. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker along with Bachman’s Warbler and the Eskimo Curlew are also assumed gone. Written accounts and images of these birds from first-hand observations were made by artists and naturalists working in early America; Mark Catesby, Alexander Wilson and John James Audubon. In words that were prophetic, they witnessed changes within their lifetimes and speculated on what a future in a diminished wilderness might be like. The prints in this exhibit are original and made from the artist’s drawings in the 18th and 19th centuries.
