For more book information please visit:
http://www.american-wildlife-art.com/
|
The Cultural Arts Council of Estes Park presents American wildlife art expert David J. Wagner and his latest book, American Wildlife Art, in a free afternoon program at the Historic Crags Lodge at 2:00 PM on Sunday June 8.
Wagner’s book signing tour for American Wildlife Art began with the book’s release in Charleston in February, and then proceeded on to a variety of other venues including the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
Wagner’s appearance will also launch the Cultural Arts Council’s fundraising efforts to bring the national tour Art and the Animal to Estes Park in May/July of 2009. With the closure of ARTS for the PARKS, the council has been searching for another museum quality tour to replace it. Art and the Animal features signature members of the Society of Animal Artists (SAA), and the tour will includes original paintings by renown artists including Canadian artist Robert Bateman and others.
Wagner currently serves as Tour Director for the distinguished Society of Animal Artists, a world-wide organization headquartered in New York City. He is responsible for ART AND THE ANIMAL, a traveling exhibition which has been displayed at over 50 venues nationwide. A portion of all books sold will benefit the Cultural Arts Council 2009 tour fund. Wagner will be signing books at the conclusion of his lecture.
Bookshelves abound with accounts of wildlife artists and their artistry, but no book is truly comparable to American Wildlife Art. In American Wildlife Art, scholar and curator David J. Wagner tells the story of this popular genre’s history, shaped by four centuries of cultural events and aesthetic and ideological trends, from its beginnings in colonial times to the monumental works of the present day. In his insightful accounts of the artists, events, and trends at the heart of this uniquely American art form, Wagner explains how the aesthetic idioms and imagery of American wildlife art have evolved, how its ecological ideologies have changed with changing circumstances and ideas about animals and their habitats, and how artists and entrepreneurs developed and influenced the market for wildlife art.
Wagner’s history begins with the works of John White and Mark Catesby, artists who documented the flora and fauna of the New World and presented Europeans with a view of both the economic potential and the natural wonders of the then sparsely settled continent. After the American Revolution, as the new nation grew, artists such as Alexander Wilson and especially John James Audubon caused the course of American wildlife art history to turn and advance, setting the stage for Arthur Tait’s collaboration with Currier & Ives, which brought wildlife art to the masses, and the work of Edward Kemeys, whose impressionistic sculpture captured the essence of disappearing wildlife like the wolf and buffalo at the same time that prominent Americans like John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt promoted wilderness preservation and the ethics of sportsmanship. As Wagner’s narrative moves to the twentieth century and beyond, it embraces in revealing detail the lives of artists Louis Agassiz Fuertes and Carl Rungius, painters who were among the most influential wildlife artists of their time. Wagner’s account concludes with portraits of recent and contemporary wildlife artists such as Ray Harm, Robert Bateman, Bob Kuhn, Roger Tory Peterson, Stanley Meltzoff, and Kent Ullberg—artists whose work at once departs from and embodies the legacies, traditions, and innovations that informed and preceded it.
Through a rich array of illustrations and its incisive text, American Wildlife Art will appeal to collectors, conservationists, and artists—to everyone who already enjoys wildlife art or who is learning about it for the first time. Wagner’s authoritative and even-handed prose brings this compelling art form to life, reminding us of the treasures found on America’s wild lands. Books will be sold the day of the program, and after at the CAC Fine Art Gallery located at 423 W. Elkhorn Ave.
The program is free and open to the public. The Historic Crags Lodge is located at 300 Riverside Drive in Estes Park, CO. Refreshments will be served. For more information on David J. Wagner’s lecture and book contact the Cultural Arts Council at 970-586-9203. For more information about the Society of Animal Artists national tour Art and the Animal visit: http://www.societyofanimalartists.com/exhibits.html.
Additional Information about the Author:
Dr. David J. Wagner, wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on American wildlife art at the University of Minnesota, while he was Scholar-in-Residence at the Sitka Center for Art and EcologyWagner has also served as Curator for the Society of Animal Artists Sculpture Courtyard at the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C.; and THE HORSE IN FINE ART exhibition of the American Academy of Equine Art with offices in New York City and Lexington, KY. Various other exhibits which Wagner has curated include ART OF THE RAINFOREST, THE ART OF ROBERT BATEMAN, BLOSSOM ~ ART OF FLOWERS, PAW & REFLECT: ART OF CANINES the sequel to FELINE FINE: ART OF CATS, and KENT ULLBERG: A RETROSPECTIVE.
David Wagner has been a Juror for the U.S. Department of Interior Federal Duck Stamp competition in Washington, D.C., and Consultant for the National Wildlife Art Museum in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and the Roger Tory Peterson Institute. Wagner served as Director of the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum during its formative first decade. There he named the Birds in Art exhibit and directed tours which launched the exhibition internationally. He subsequently established and managed the tour of the National Park Academy for the Arts traveling exhibit, Arts for the Parks. Upcoming projects include ENDANGERED SPECIES: FLORA AND FAUNA IN PERIL sponsored by The Wildling Art Museum near Santa Barbara, California.
In 1998, Wagner co-authored Natural Habitat, Contemporary Wildlife Artists of North America, for Spanierman Gallery in New York City. He subsequently completed a 1,000+ page manuscript entitled American Wildlife Art for Cornell University Press, which is being released by Marquand Books early in 2008. American Wildlife Art was sponsored by a major grant from the Robert S. and Grayce B. Kerr Foundation with additional support from the Peninsula Art Association and the Wisconsin Arts Board to the Newport Wilderness Society.
Dr. Wagner has given slide lectures about American wildlife painting, sculpture, and conservation, at venues ranging from museums in New York City and Williamsburg, to Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies.
|
