Paul Sweet is the Collection Manager in the Ornithology Department of the American Museum of Natural History (in charge of the department’s many different collections) and the author of the recent book Extraordinary Birds, the second in the museum’s Natural Histories series, which traces the entwined histories of art and science through illustrated works from the museum’s Rare Book Collection. He will discuss his book, which features bird illustrations from 40 rare volumes with accompanying essays (the boxed set also contains these illustrations as separate frameable prints). He writes, “I examine the history of ornithological illustration from the Renaissance to the 20th century, tracing the development of printing techniques, world exploration and scientific thought, and tell the stories of important figures from the history of ornithology.”
