John J. Audubon's Birds of America
About the Exhibit
Toronto Public Library is pleased to announce John J. Audubon's Birds of America, a spectacular new exhibit at the TD Gallery featuring life-sized images of birds.
In the 1820s, American naturalist John James Audubon set out to paint all of the birds in North America, creating one of the most important, and beautiful, books on natural history ever published.
The exhibit presents a rare opportunity to see a sampling of images from the library's rare double-elephant folio edition of Audubon's Birds of America - one of only five copies in Canada. The folio owes its enormous size to the fact that Audubon insisted every bird be illustrated life-size.
Original hand-painted engravings are grouped by habitat and displayed with quotations from Audubon's field notes to highlight the artist's ground-breaking approach of depicting birds in life-like poses in their natural habitat.
The 2015 TD Gallery season is generously sponsored by TD Bank Group.
Exhibition Highlights:
- A selection of beautifully engraved, hand-coloured plates from the library's double-elephant folio edition of Birds of America.
- Evocative quotations from Audubon's field notes detailing the habits and habitats of the birds on display.
- Interactive touchscreens where visitors can see video and hear the calls of Audubon's birds in the wild, and explore many more images from Birds of America.
Guided Tours
September 29, October 20, and November 10, 2015
Tours begin at 2 p.m. in the TD Gallery
Related programming
Audubon's Aviary: Then and Now
October 13, 2015, 6 p.m.
Toronto Reference Library - Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium
Katherine Govier on the life of John James Audubon
November 11, 2015, 2 p.m
Toronto Reference Library - Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium