Product Description

At first glance, Walton Ford s large-scale, highly-detailed watercolors of animals may recall the prints of 19th century illustrators John James Audubon and Edward Lear, and others of the colonial era. But a closer look reveals a complex and disturbingly anthropomorphic universe, full of symbols, sly jokes, and allusions to the 'operatic' nature of traditional natural history themes. The beasts and birds populating this contemporary artist's life-size paintings are never mere objects, but dynamic actors in allegorical struggles: a wild turkey crushes a small parrot in its claw; a troupe of monkeys wreak havoc on a formal dinner table, an American buffalo is surrounded by bloodied white wolves. The book's title derives from The Pancha Tantra, an ancient Indian book of animal tales considered the precursor to Aesop s Fables.



This large-format edition includes an in-depth exploration of Walton Ford s oeuvre, a complete biography, and excerpts from his textual inspirations: Vietnamese folktales and the letters of Benjamin Franklin, the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini and Audubon s Ornithological Biography.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3562 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-03
• Original language: French, German, English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

From the Publisher
Special features:
* Limited to 1,500 individually numbered copies, each signed by Walton Ford
* Printed on acid-free paper
* Finished in Luxor book cloth with a leather spine and corners with gold embossing
* Packaged in a clamshell box covered in Luxor book cloth

From the Author
Walton Ford grew up in Westchester County, New York, in a family of gifted storytellers. As a child he was an amateur naturalist--collecting animals, hiking, fishing, and devoting much of his free time to examining and drawing the dioramas and specimens at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He completed his studies in filmmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1982, but soon adapted his talent for storytelling to painting. His life-size watercolors, which at first glance appear to be in the vein of 19th-century natural-history painters like John J. Audubon or Edward Lear, are actually complexly layered fantasies depicting wild animals in unnatural settings and situations, and cite textual sources ranging from the letters of Benjamin Franklin to the journals of Leonardo da Vinci. Ford lived in New York City for most of the 1980s and '90s--home base for personally and professional influential travels to countries including Italy, India, and Mexico--and for some years supported himself as a wood refinisher, carpenter, metalworker, and illustrator, while developing his craft and audience. His work has been exhibited widely since 1987 at private galleries and public institutions including The Whitney Museum, The Brooklyn Museum, the Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York, Michael Cohn Gallery in Los Angeles. He has been awarded a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts, among others. He now lives, works, and hikes in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts.

About the Author
About the artist:

Walton Ford, born 1960 in Larchmont, NY, graduated in filmmaking from RISD, but switched to large-scale watercolor painting. His work has been widely exhibited, including shows at the Whitney and Brooklyn museums. He lives and works in Massachusetts.





About the author:

Bill Buford is an author and New Yorker staff writer, as well as the founding editor of Granta, which he edited for 16 years. His books include Among the Thugs and Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as a Kitchen Slave. He lives in New York City with his wife and two sons.

Customer Reviews

What a buy!
I'm a huge fan of Ford's work, and I've been trying to get some printed resources for a year. All the calendars and previous boooks are out of print or too expensive, so when this edition became available at this price I almost went nuts.

And this beautiful book does not disappoint. The color plates are gorgeous, the wonderful pages showing details are crisp, and the superb text by Bill Buford is illumnating. I am ecstatic about this purchase. One of the best deals I have ever had on Amazon.com.

Pancha Tantra is Amazing
This book is absolutely amazing! I only learned of Ford after seeing his work on the cover of naturalist book of essays and was instantly captivated. I am happy to finally have a book with so many wonderful images of his art, both full images of the paintings as well as close-ups of certain details. Ford's incredible work is wonderfully presented in this affordable edition.