Final weekend for art museum’s Audubon exhibition and pop-up shop

“Audubon’s Last Wilderness Journey: The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America,” on display at the Jule Collins Smith Museum, will be coming to a close on Sunday, May 6. The museum is open Friday, May 4, until 4:30 p.m. Weekend hours are Saturday from 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. and Sunday from 1-4 p.m.

The museum pop-up shop–Audubon’s Wilderness Outpost– has offered a unique shopping experience featuring merchandise exclusive to Audubon’s images. The animals on the museum walls have made their way onto tea towels, puzzles, magnets, bookmarks, tote bags and more. The Outpost will be closing its doors on May 6, but the Museum Shop will remain open and is having a special sale for Mother’s Day from May 10-13.

The exhibition documents a 19th-century trek from Missouri through the Sioux Nation into present-day Montana to artistically capture quadrupeds—four-legged mammals that do not lay eggs. The exhibition includes the three-volume Imperial Folio, as well as a selection of unbound prints on loan from the Amon Carter Museum of American Art and other materials, such as paintings by John Woodhouse Audubon produced as part of the original folio production process, maps of the journey and assorted artifacts from the Edward Harris Collection.

“Along with the prints intact in the folios and loose sheets displayed on the walls, we have a 55-inch monitor and interactive touchscreen that allow the audience to scroll through each print and see an expanded view of the animal in crisp detail,” said Dennis Harper, museum curator of collections and exhibitions.

The exhibition is the counterpart to the research publication “Audubon’s Last Wilderness Journey: The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America”, a fully illustrated, companion publication featuring essays from Auburn researchers and invited scholars on wildlife conservation issues—both then and now—plus a step-by-step of what was then considered a revolutionary artistic endeavor. The book has been featured in “Garden & Gun,” “Nature: International Journal of Science,” and “Smithsonian.” The book is currently available for purchase in the Museum Shop for $59.95.

Also on view at the museum is “Master Prints in the Permanent Collection.” Many of the selections are new to the museum’s collection and have not been exhibited previously. Artists from the 17th and 18th centuries are shown side by side more contemporary artists who have carried the traditions of printmaking into the 21st century. “Out of the Box,” an outdoor juried sculpture exhibition is on the museum grounds with other permanent collection sculptures in the Susan Phillips Gardens.

Museum admission is free; a five-dollar donation is appreciated. JCSM memberships start at $50 and support museum programs. For a complete list of museum hours, visit us at JCSM.Auburn.edu.