Welcome to Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter’s fantasy world of rabbit schoolchildren, cigar-smoking squirrels and exemplary feline etiquette in Walter Potter’s Curious World of Taxidermy…
Walter Potter (1835–1918), a British country taxidermist of no great expertise, built anthropomorphic taxidermy tableaux that became famous icons of Victorian whimsy, including his masterpiece The Death & Burial of Cock Robin. His tiny museum in Bramber, Sussex, was crammed full of multi-legged kittens, two-headed lambs, and a bewildering assortment of curios. Potter’s inspired and beguiling tableaux found many fans in the contemporary art world: it was reported that a £1M bid by Damien Hirst to keep the collection intact was refused when the museum finally closed. Here, perhaps for the last time, many important pieces from the collection are showcased and celebrated with new photographs of Potter’s best-loved works. Darkly witty and affecting, Walter Potter’s Curious World of Taxidermy makes a charming, whimsical (and yes, slightly morbid) gift.
“Walter Potter’s Curious World of Taxidermy is one of the most important books I’ve read on Victorian taxidermy in months. It’s like Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, but with squirrels.”—Gary Shteyngart, T Magazine, The New York Times
DR. PAT MORRIS is a biologist, and formerly a senior lecturer in zoology at Royal Holloway, University of London, specializing in mammal ecology, particularly hedgehogs and dormice. He is the author of twenty books about natural history and taxidermy and has published more than 150 scientific papers and magazine articles on natural history topics. He first visited Walter Potter’s museum in Bramber in 1955 and thirty years later became a technical adviser to its owners. With their help, he gained an unrivaled knowledge of Potter’s work, and first published as Walter Potter and His Museum of Curious Taxidermy in 2008, a record of a unique collection now dispersed by its sale in 2003.
View titles by Pat Morris
Joanna Ebenstein is the founder and creative director of Morbid Anatomy. An internationally recognized death expert, her books include Memento Mori: The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life, Anatomica: The Exquisite and Unsettling Art of Human Anatomy, Death: A Graveside Companion and The Anatomical Venus. She is also an award winning curator, photographer, and graphic designer, and teacher of the many times sold out class Memento Mori: Befriending Death with Art, History and the Imagination.
View titles by Joanna Ebenstein
Welcome to Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter’s fantasy world of rabbit schoolchildren, cigar-smoking squirrels and exemplary feline etiquette in Walter Potter’s Curious World of Taxidermy…
Walter Potter (1835–1918), a British country taxidermist of no great expertise, built anthropomorphic taxidermy tableaux that became famous icons of Victorian whimsy, including his masterpiece The Death & Burial of Cock Robin. His tiny museum in Bramber, Sussex, was crammed full of multi-legged kittens, two-headed lambs, and a bewildering assortment of curios. Potter’s inspired and beguiling tableaux found many fans in the contemporary art world: it was reported that a £1M bid by Damien Hirst to keep the collection intact was refused when the museum finally closed. Here, perhaps for the last time, many important pieces from the collection are showcased and celebrated with new photographs of Potter’s best-loved works. Darkly witty and affecting, Walter Potter’s Curious World of Taxidermy makes a charming, whimsical (and yes, slightly morbid) gift.
Reviews
“Walter Potter’s Curious World of Taxidermy is one of the most important books I’ve read on Victorian taxidermy in months. It’s like Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, but with squirrels.”—Gary Shteyngart, T Magazine, The New York Times
Author
DR. PAT MORRIS is a biologist, and formerly a senior lecturer in zoology at Royal Holloway, University of London, specializing in mammal ecology, particularly hedgehogs and dormice. He is the author of twenty books about natural history and taxidermy and has published more than 150 scientific papers and magazine articles on natural history topics. He first visited Walter Potter’s museum in Bramber in 1955 and thirty years later became a technical adviser to its owners. With their help, he gained an unrivaled knowledge of Potter’s work, and first published as Walter Potter and His Museum of Curious Taxidermy in 2008, a record of a unique collection now dispersed by its sale in 2003.
View titles by Pat Morris
Joanna Ebenstein is the founder and creative director of Morbid Anatomy. An internationally recognized death expert, her books include Memento Mori: The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life, Anatomica: The Exquisite and Unsettling Art of Human Anatomy, Death: A Graveside Companion and The Anatomical Venus. She is also an award winning curator, photographer, and graphic designer, and teacher of the many times sold out class Memento Mori: Befriending Death with Art, History and the Imagination.
View titles by Joanna Ebenstein
