Wild Flowers of North America

Beschreibung

Now available in a new, large single volume with an appendix also listing the modern plant names, this classic collection by “the Audubon of botany” features more than 250 exquisite reproductions of Walcott’s celebrated watercolors of wildflower life in the United States of America and Canada.

What does it take to paint a wildflower that blooms for a single day in a deep forest? For Mary Vaux Walcott, it involved spending up to seventeen hours a day out of doors with her paintbox to capture the shape, movement, and colors of delicate petals and leaves. Originally published in 1925 to enormous acclaim in five, oversized volumes, Walcott’s sketches introduced the diversity and beauty of North American plants to the general public. A selection of some of the most stunning illustrations are now available in a single volume, these illustrations have lost none of their beauty or realism. Walcott’s technique involved precise attention to detail, color, light, and perspective. Her art can also be appreciated as the work of a woman scientist battling the prejudices against her gender that were common in her day. She was an intrepid explorer, skilled mountaineer, and generous benefactor to the Smithsonian Institution at a time when women’s accomplishments were often overlooked or misattributed. As inspirational and informative as they are a pleasure for the eyes, this bouquet of nature’s fleeting gifts is a lasting treasure of botanic and scientific artistry.

Published in association with the Smithsonian Institution
The incredibly beautiful depictions of the wild flowers of North America by Mary Vaux Walcott (1925), published back then in a five volume work in North American Wild Flowers, are finally available again in a stunning coffee table book.
Mary Vaux Walcott was a botanist, woman explorer and adventurer – she was a pioneer at a time where women in this field were rare.
The Smithsonian historian Pamela Henson is an expert on American women in science in general and on Mary Vaux Walcott’s life and work in particular and has dug up new findings on the artist, botanist and pioneer.
For readers interested in botany, wildflowers, women in science and their achievements in science and society.
In the appendix, additionally to the terms that Mary Vaux Walcott used, the modern terms and family information of the flowers are given.

Autor*in

Pamela Henson
PAMELA HENSON directs the Institutional History program at Smithsonian Institution Archives and is Historian in Residence, History Department, at American University in Washington, D.C. Recent publications include “Looking at Culture through an Artist’s Eyes: William Henry Holmes and the Exploration of Native American Archaeology,” in: M. Thomas and A. Harris (eds.), Expeditionary Anthropology: Teamwork, Travel, and the ‘Science of Man’, 2018. She co-curated Welcome to Your Smithsonian (Smithsonian Castle, 2015). Recent awards include 2015 Feis Award for Public History, American Historical Association, and Smithsonian Secretary’s Gold Medal for Exceptional Service, 2014.

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blumen botanik kanada kunst buch bücher englische bücher neuerscheinung zeichnen biologie smithsonian institution naturwissemschaftlerin frauen naturwissenschaft künstlerin vereinigte staaten

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