My background primarily centers around herpetology. Early on I worked with captive amphibians and reptiles, then did field work for a few years. Eventually my love of books and art mingled with my love of animals and I began selling herpetological books. My fascination with natural history illustrations really took off when I started collecting and selling rare books.
Many natural history books published before about 1900 contain wonderful natural history illustrations. These illustrations have been used for all sorts of purposes ever since. My goal here is to offer a variety illustrations in both a 'historic' format - showing the image as it is today, often with yellowing, foxing, small tears, etc. As well as a 'modern' format - cleaned up versions that really show off the art.
Whenever possible I will reference the illustrator as the artist, and where it was originally published in the description. All too often natural history art is known by the author of the work instead of the illustrator. As a result many great natural history artists/illustrators are hardly known today.
Breck Bartholomew joined Fine Art America on August 24th, 2016.
