Acknowledgments

I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale.

Marie Curie

Madame Curie’s premise encourages us to consider John J. Audubon’s laboratory as the expansive 19th-century American landscape where he studied and observed natural phenomena, making careful visual and written notations on the birds, plant life, and later the mammals that inhabited this vast open workshop. For him, the marriage of natural science and art was an accepted practice in pursuit of new discoveries. For a very long time, after Audubon created his magnificent portfolios, academia became increasingly compartmentalized into separate and not always equal disciplines. But fortunately, in more recent years we have come to recognize that collaboration of these crossover areas yields more substantial material than we would have through isolated pursuits. Looking at the magical wonders that constitute Audubon’s Birds of America, we are struck by their detail and beauty much like that child enthralled by a fairy tale. Equally enchanting is the opportunity to discover these wonders firsthand as we experience them in a natural setting.

This field publication has been a most worthy and significant project, bringing together the expertise and educational resources of the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art (JCSM), the Donald E. Davis Arboretum, the College of Sciences and Mathematics, and the Auburn University Libraries. Such collaboration was not only valuable to the participants who were able to share their knowledge, but it has resulted in this uniquely informative guide which will prove a benefit to all of us who have a passion for the natural world and the art it inspired. This project celebrates JCSM’s 10th and the Davis Arboretum’s 50th anniversary, both important historical benchmarks for these institutions.

We wish to acknowledge and thank everyone whose efforts made this publication possible. This includes our writers—Scott Bishop, Dee Smith, and Andrea Wulf—as well as Candis Birchfield and Jay Lamar for their role as editors and Dennis Harper and Janet Guynn for their knowledgeable direction and beautiful design. We are also forever grateful to Susan Philips for the gift of the museum’s extraordinary Audubon collection, amassed by her beloved grandparents Louise Hauss and David Brent Miller. The Audubon collection and its endowment are among JCSM’s great strengths, and it is appropriate to acknowledge this significant gift, which not only made this project possible but provides the wherewithal for ongoing scholarship.

It is with great pleasure that we present this collaborative endeavor.

Marilyn Laufer Director, Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art Bonnie MacEwan Dean, Auburn University Libraries Nicholas Giordano Dean, College of Sciences and Mathematics

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