A NATURALIST'S NOTE-BOOK IN CHINA.

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Shanghai: North-China Daily News & Herald, Ltd. 1925. 270pp + 30 plates. Pictorial yellow cloth. Very good. This title comes from the distinguished library of J. Fenwick Lansdowne (1937-2008), the award winning British Columbia artistand illustrator whose accurate and artistic depictions of birds are prized  around the world by museums and collectors. HIS ARTISTICALLY DESIGNED BOOKPLATE IS TIPPED IN. The paintings of James Fenwick Lansdowne have been compared to those of John James Audubon. That Lansdowne owned a deluxe, and costly edition of Audubon's work, the Bird of America which  suggests that Lansdowne not only prized Audubon's illustrations, found inspiration in them, but perhaps tried to emulate the American artist for his magisterial depiction of wildlife, in particular birds.  Lansdowne was born in Hong Kong and in 1940 moved to Victoria, British Columbia where he worked and resided for the rest of his life. When he was only 19 years old, the Royal Ontario Museum mounted an exhibition of his watercolours. He later went on to exhibit at the Smithsonian, the American Museum of Natural History, and Audubon House in New York. In the mid 1960s, he would go on to provide illustrations for bird books as well as limited edition prints based on the large watercolour and gouache paintings used to illustrate books. He is best known as the illustrator of sumptuous books.   Lansdowne was awarded the Order of Canada and made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1977, as an ornithological artist of wide renown, with the rare ability not only to be essentially correct in his paintings of birds, but to portray them so they seemingly come to life. In 1995, he received the Order of British Columbia. Seller Inventory # 009077

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