Audubon Art Prints: A Collector's Guide to Every Edition

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Summary: Unlocking the Door to the World of Audubon Prints
Review: One of the most common stories you hear while visiting purveyors of original Audubon prints is how they constantly receive phone calls asking "is my Audubon print an original?" Of course, this is due to the combination of two phenomena - people have the general notion that Audubon prints are valuable, but there are millions of reproductions out there which, although they may be aesthetically pleasing, are not worth much. How to tell if you hit the jackpot (an Antiques Roadshow moment) without making that phone call? Buy this book. Bill Steiner has written the first extensive treatment on Audubon prints from the viewpoint of the collector. There are lots of books about Audubon out there, and some scholarly books on the original prints (most notably by Susanne Low). But, this book lays out all the knowledge gathered by an avid collector, accumulated over many years of poking through print shops and galleries and examining large numbers of Audubon prints, of all kinds. If you don't have the time to learn all these details the old fashioned way, as Bill Steiner did, then this is your best key to the world of collecting Audubon prints. It is written in an almost folksy style, and is very accessible to the reader. Of great importance to anyone thinking of starting to obtain some of those actually genuine original Audubon prints is an evaluation of how to do this via auction, and in particular, via online auction sites. But, this book is more than just for the beginner, and long-time connoisseurs of Audubon will immensely enjoy it, both for validation of what they already knew, as well as to see if the author knows something they don't!