One of the Society’s first tasks was to commission Franco-Hellenic sculptor Margo Roulleau-Gallais (b. 1979) to create a portrait of Lear. Based on photographic archives, Roulleau-Gallais crafted a bronze life- size bust of the painter’s great naturalistic likeness, as largely familiar to the public, groomed with a long and thick beard, wearing spectacles with oval … Continue reading »
‘Verily I am an odd bird’, Edward Lear wrote in his diary in 1860. This article examines a range of odd encounters between birds and people in Lear’s paintings, illustrations, and poems. It considers how his interest in birds – an interest at once scientific and aesthetic – helped to shape his nonsense writings. I … Continue reading »
On 14th May, Stephen Duckworth gave a lecture at the Heraklion Historical Museum in Crete to celebrate Lear’s travels there exactly 150 years ago. The talk covered his Cretan travels, the 200 plus drawings he made whilst there, and Stephen Duckworth’s research on what has happened to those drawings since they came onto the market … Continue reading »
2012 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edward Lear, celebrated British wildlife illustrator, landscape artist and travel writer, best remembered for his limericks and whimsical comic verse such as The Owl and the Pussycat. His book on the parrot family, with its stunning hand-coloured lithographs, included new species for Australia and pre-dated the … Continue reading »