A Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House

by Danny Heitman

Overview

Over the summer of 1821, a cash-strapped John James Audubon worked as a tutor at Oakley Plantation in Louisiana’s rural West Feliciana Parish. This move initiated a profound change in direction for the struggling artist. Oakley’s woods teemed with life, galvanizing Audubon to undertake one of the most extraordinary endeavors in the annals of art: a comprehensive pictorial record of America’s birds. That summer, Audubon began what would eventually become his four-volume opus, Birds of America.

In A Summer of Birds, Danny Heitman recounts the season that shaped Audubon’s destiny, sorting facts from romance to give an intimate view of the world’s most famous bird artist. A new preface marks the two-­hundredth anniversary of that eventful interlude, reflecting on Audubon’s enduring legacy among artists, aesthetes, and nature lovers in Louisiana and around the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807173695
Publisher:	Louisiana State University Press
Publication date:	02/05/2020
Series:	The Hill Collection: Holdings of the LSU Libraries
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	149
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

Danny Heitman is an award-winning columnist for The Advocate newspaper in Louisiana and editor of Phi Kappa Phi's Forum magazine. His essays and book reviews have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Smithsonian, and elsewhere.

Editorial Reviews

This brilliant, sophisticated book recounts a turning point in the life of America's most famous nature illustrator. In the summer of 1821, John James Audobon arrived at sprawling Oakley Plantation in central Louisiana. Strapped for cash, the Haitian-born artist had accepted a post as a drawing instructor for the young daughter of the plantation owners. The job provided him with ample to roam freely over the estate, observing and sketching the "almost supernatural" abundance of birds. It was the richness of this experience that fully convinced the artist-naturalist to undertake the great project of his life, the creation of his majestic Birds of America.

If all historians wrote as beautifully as Danny Heitman, history would be everyone’s favorite subject. . . . Filled with all the color, texture, and detail of an Audubon painting.

Louisiana History

A fine portrait of the artist as a man in motion, a young man rather than an icon.

Living Bird Magazine