The Wonderful
World of Prehistoric Animals, 1961
By William E. Swinton
This is another prehistoric
animal book by the prolific dino-book author and paleontologist, W. E.
Swinton. What distinguishes
this book is the inclusion of many
color reproductions of watercolors by the artist Maurice Wilson.
Wilson's paleoart work is
included in several other paleo/geology books, but
unfortunately they are often only black and white reproductions.
A web search on "Maurice Wilson" will pull up some information about
Wilson posted by paleoartist Dan Varner. Varner notes
that:
"Wilson certainly is up there in the pantheon with
Knight, Burian, Zallinger, and others in the first rank of painters and
sculptors who crafted images of prehistoric animals not only as
illustrations, but also as investigations into the beauty and aesthetics of
their form and environment."
Varner also notes that Wilson may have been "the first artist to do 'modern'
dinosaurs with erect limbs and horizontal backbones..."
Indeed, one of the books in my collection (not yet posted), "A guide to Earth History," by Richard Carrington and originally
published in 1956, contains restorations of Tyrannosaurus and Anatosaurus with horizontal backbones.
See:
http://dml.cmnh.org/2001Jul/msg00039.html
and:
http://dml.cmnh.org/1997Jul/msg00351.html
for more of Varner's posts.
Also see:
http://dml.cmnh.org/1997Jul/msg00404.html
for more info on Wilson that was posted by Darren Naish in response
to a query by Varner.
Finally, the following url leads to a webpage on Wilson from the
Natural History Museum in London.
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/online-exhibitions/art-themes/drawingconclusions/more/aepyornis_more_info.htm
Stegosaurus and Archaeopteryx by Wilson. Other artists
represented in this book include Sidney W. Woods, G. Leigh
Davies, and
Peter Sullivan. But it is Wilson's color pieces
that make this book special.
Special thanks to Dan Varner for alerting me to this book.
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