Pitt’s Original John James Audubon Prints Featured In Free Public Display Nov. 18

PITTSBURGH—More than 20 of the University of Pittsburgh’s original prints from John James Audubon’s Birds of America (1827-1838) will be featured in a free public display from 9 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Nov. 18 as Pitt’s University Library System (ULS) marks its first public celebration of Audubon Day.

The daylong display will be in Room 363, the Special Collections Reading Room, Hillman Library, 3960 Forbes Ave., Oakland. 

From 1 to 2 p.m. in the Hillman Library’s Amy Knapp Room, the public can hear a presentation about Birds of America and the efforts at Pitt to preserve and digitize its rare four-volume set of the illustrations of colorful birds in their natural environment. 

The Pitt presenters are:

• Charles Aston, curator of rare books, prints, and exhibits;

• Edward Galloway, head of the Archives Service Center; and

• Jeanann Hass, head of special collections and preservation. 

Most people are familiar with Audubon’s work because they have seen his paintings of birds on greeting cards, in books, or on calendars. His Birds of America revolutionized bird illustration, as he portrayed them life-sized and in their natural habitat. Audubon’s images include six birds that are now extinct.

A complete set was bound in four volumes and comprised 435 prints, depicting 1,065 birds of 497 species. Each print, measuring 27 by 40 inches, was made from an engraved (etched) plate. Approximately 175 sets were printed, but over the years, many of the volumes had been dismantled so that prints could be sold individually to collectors. Only 120 complete sets exist. 

The ULS acquired its complete Birds of America set as part of the William McCullough Darlington Library, which was given to Pitt in two installments—in 1918 and 1925—by Darlington’s two daughters. The rare Audubon prints were too fragile to share with the public as bound volumes. Following the Library of Congress model, the volumes were unbound and each print was conserved at Etherington Conservation in North Carolina and housed in an archival folder.

In 2006, the ULS and its Digital Research Library (DRL) embarked on an ambitious project to digitize the Darlington Library holdings. By August 2007, the DRL had digitized all 435 Birds of America plates, opening access of the colorful prints to the world. To view the complete collection online, visit http://audubon.pitt.edu.

About the ULS

The ULS is the 23rd-largest academic library system within the United States. Under the administration of the Hillman University Librarian and ULS Director Rush G. Miller, it includes 20 libraries and collections and holds more than 6.2 million volumes and world-class specialized collections, among them the Archive of Scientific Philosophy and the Archives of Industrial Society, as well as major foreign-language materials from around the world totaling 1.4 million volumes. The ULS offers state-of-the-art facilities and services, with innovative digital library collections and capabilities.

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11/9/11/mab/lks