WAUSAU, WI — From September 2, 2014 through July, 2015, the Woodson Art Museum presents Legacy Lost & Saved: Extinct and Endangered Birds of North America. The exhibition comprises artistic portrayals of extinct and endangered species, including the great auk, passenger pigeon, Carolina parakeet, heath hen, and Labrador duck, which are recent extinctions – designated as lost since 1500.
The museum’s curator of collections, Jane Weinke, based the theme of the exhibition on Project Passenger Pigeon, an initiative throughout North America to mark the centenary of the bird’s extinction on September 1, 1914. The exhibit includes two of Kate Garchinsky’s passenger pigeon illustrations, drawn from the extinct bird collection at the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel in Philadelphia, PA. Both illustrations were recently featured in the American Birding Association’s Birding magazine (May/June 2014).
The exhibition has four categories; Passenger Pigeon, Too Late: Modern Extinctions, Wisconsin Stories, and Successes. The Museum’s extensive collection and a few loans provide the 30 works in the exhibition, including sculptures and drawings by The Lost Bird Project‘s Todd McGrain, and passenger pigeon paintings by the “dean of U.S. wildlife artists,” Owen J. Gromme. Original drawings of the ivory-billed woodpecker by Don Richard Eckelberry are also included. Eckelberry’s April 1944 sighting of the ivory-billed woodpecker is universally accepted as the last official species record.
