Published: November 15, 2024; Aithor: Julia Sonrisa
Address: 47 East 60th Street, New York, NY 10022, United States
Phone: +1 212-838-6690
Web: https://www.grolierclub.org/Default.aspx?p=dynamicmodule&pageid=384894&ssid=322515&vnf=1Join the Grolier Club as former Grolierite Robert McCracken Peck, Curator of Art and Senior Fellow at The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, lectures on books about the natural world from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that defied expectations by replicating nature in a tangible way.
The volumes incorporated the organisms into their pages, or, in the case of trees, used the subjects being discussed to create the books describing them. In what we think of as the “Golden Age” of natural history publications, John James Audubon and James Bateman took their volumes to extremes in size. At the same time, Maria Sibylla Merian, Mark Catesby, Pierre Joseph Redoute, Joseph Bloch, John Gould, and other naturalist artists bedazzled contemporaries with illustrations that are still referenced by scientists and sought after by collectors. These publications’ goal was to record and disseminate information about plants and wildlife, and to provide “lifelike” illustrations of flora and fauna.
In this heavily illustrated lecture, Peck will discuss a different approach to scientific illustration: how natural history specimens were used to illustrate themselves in three dimensions in exsiccatae, xylotheks, and lepidochromes. He will also discuss books illustrated with feathers. You won’t want to miss this unusual — and beautiful — presentation about a little-known aspect of scientific book production.
Note: This is an in-person event. If you wish to register instead for the live webcast, please visit this page.
If you are a Grolier Club member, please register yourself and your guests via the Club website. Do not register via Eventbrite.
We appreciate your interest in the Grolier Club’s programming on the art and history of the book. For more than 130 years we have offered our exhibitions and lectures to the public, free of charge. If you have enjoyed these offerings and would like to support that tradition and help ensure that it continues, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Grolier Club.
An ADA-compliant lift from the street level to the lobby is available to anyone with mobility issues. All desk staff should be ready and able to assist you in operating the lift, with or without advance notice.
A “T-Coil” assisted listening system is available to anyone attending a lecture in the Exhibition Hall. Visitors with hearing aids should turn their devices to the “T” setting in order to access the system; visitors without hearing aids may request a “loop receiver” with earphones.
The temperature and humidity in the exhibition hall are tightly controlled for the sake of the valuable items on display, and this may cause the room to feel chilly, particularly in warmer weather, to those coming in from outside. Members and visitors are advised to bring a light wrap when visiting an exhibition, or attending an event in the hall.
Time: 6:30-8:00 pm EST
Free!
Detailed information and discussion of the event.