Here's some fun trivia. Much of the art at the Library, perhaps even most of it, is associated with the opening of the Civic Center 50 years ago. Some of it, though, is older. Even if it is not always to contemporary taste, the art is interesting historically.
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| The Great Blue Heron (City of Salem) |
In the Library on the main floor is a painting by R. Bruce Horsfall, "The Great Blue Heron." It is not probably noticed very much. Certainly I have passed by it and not given it much attention, merely reading it as "old."
Back in 1923 it received much more attention and was more highly regarded.
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| August 10th, 1923 |
While the old Carnegie Library was raising funds for its acquisition, for a few days it was on display in the Reed Opera House, in Miller's department store.
The Library was successful, and the tag at the current Library lists the accession date as 1924.
Earlier it, or one very similar, had been in a show at the Carnegie Library sponsored by the Oregon Audubon Society.
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| May 22nd, 1921 |
Horsfall had several paintings in that show and the next year he put together a book, Birds of the Pacific Coast, with them. It was published in 1923.
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| March 8th, 1922 |
In 2019 Portland Audubon donated 55 illustrations of birds from that book to the Oregon Historical Society and next month they'll have a show of them.
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| OHS Show announcement |
One of them is a Heron similar to the one in the Library. This may have been the one in the Salem show of 1921.
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| (OHS 2019-27.51.1,.2) |
The other 54 illustrations can be seen if you click on the name Bruce Horsfall in the "maker" field. (I could not figure out how to make a url for the whole list of 55.)
As a product of and participant in an emergent culture of bird-watching and conservation, the Heron is fascinating! Horsfall was only a little older than William L. Finley, who is better known today.
If you are into birds, history, or art, or all of them, check out the painting at the Library and then the show at OHS in September.
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