Birds The Art of Ornithology

About this book

This landmark book will fascinate anyone interested in birds, natural history and art, and it is relaunched in a striking new boxed set format in 2017. The boxed set contains a 224-page hardback (216 × 254 mm) and 36 frameable prints (260 × 330 mm) in a clamshell box (269 × 342 mm).

Jonathan Elphick tells the remarkable story of the development of bird art through the centuries. The book features early, skilfully executed but often fanciful images of birds, scientific illustrations produced during the ages of exploration, and modem approaches capturing the essence of these freest of all creatures.

The outstanding selection of images from the unrivalled collection at the Natural History Museum includes exquisitely crafted works from some of the most famous natural history artists ever published including Audubon, Lear, MacGillivray and Gould.

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Biography

Jonathan Elphick is a natural history author, editor and consultant who specialises in ornithology. During a career spanning more than 40 years, he has worked on many books, including writing award-winning titles such as Birdwatcher's Handbook. Among many other projects, he spent four years as researcher for the acclaimed bestseller Birds Britannica, written by Mark Cocker. Jonathan has travelled extensively to study bird life and was elevated to Scientific Fellowship of the Zoological Society of London in recognition of his services to the popularisation of zoology. The Library of the Natural History Museum is a repository for one of the most exciting and comprehensive collections of natural history literature and artworks to be found anywhere in the world. It holds over half a million artworks, comprising one of Britain's biggest art collections and representing all the great natural history artists, and many thousands of books, including some richly illustrated volumes of great historical significance.