Phaidon Announces Butterfly: Exploring the World of Lepidoptera, a Visual Survey Celebrating the Beauty of Butterflies and Moths Across Art, History, Science, and Culture
Butterfly takes readers on a glorious journey across continents and cultures and explores the diversity and beauty of butterflies that have fascinated artists, thinkers, and designers throughout history. With more than 250 entries and glorious large-scale images for each work featured, this comprehensive visual survey showcases a huge variety of species of butterfly and moth, from the blue morpho and monarch to the death’s-head hawkmoth. Spanning a wide range of styles and media, the engaging characteristics of the butterfly – at each of its life stages – are explored in a carefully curated sequence, with works, regardless of period, thoughtfully paired to allow interesting and revealing juxtapositions between them. This book is at once a celebration and an intriguing overview of the worlds of butterflies and moths, as shown through art, history, science, and culture.
Artists featured include: María Berrio, Peter Blake, Lee Bontecou, Alexander Calder, Caroline Cheng, Rebecca Coles, Salvador Dalí, Mat Collishaw, Jean Dubuffet, M. C. Escher, Gyoshu Hayami, Sheila Hicks, Damien Hirst, Frida Kahlo, René Lalique, Iela Mari, Wardell Milan, Berthe Morisot, Maria van Oosterwijck, Gabriel Orozco, Man Ray, Yinka Shonibare, and Vincent van Gogh, among others.
Courtesy of TAG Fine Arts (page 183) Recycled art books and entomology pins, 393⁄8 × 393⁄8 in / 100 × 100 cm. Mark Jason Gallery, London
Courtesy of Ashley Longshore (pages 264-265) Acrylic and gold leaf on canvas, 48 × 96 in / 121.9 × 243.8 cm
Designed and illustrated by Natalya Zahn, for Pollinator Partnership (page 41) Poster, 33 × 24 in / 83.8 × 61 cm