Black-billed Cuckoo

Barbara Bosworth, Black-billed Cuckoo, 2005, chromogenic print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Haluk and Elisa Soykan, 2008.2.19, © 2005, Barbara Bosworth
Copied Barbara Bosworth, Black-billed Cuckoo, 2005, chromogenic print, 18 1⁄4 x 23 1⁄4 in. (46.4 x 59.1 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Haluk and Elisa Soykan, 2008.2.19, © 2005, Barbara Bosworth

Artwork Details

Title
Black-billed Cuckoo
Artist
Date
2005
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
18 1⁄4 x 23 1⁄4 in. (46.4 x 59.1 cm)
Copyright
© 2005, Barbara Bosworth
Credit Line
Gift of Haluk and Elisa Soykan
Mediums Description
chromogenic print
Classifications
Subjects
  • Animal — bird — cuckoo
Object Number
2008.2.19
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2008.2.19

Artwork Description

As of 2008, Bosworth was working with researchers in Ohio and Massachusetts who capture and release songbirds during the spring migration. As with her champion tree photographs, these images seem at first to be concerned with classifying the natural world in systematic detail. Yet they are also part of an encompassing portrait of a complex and interconnected universe filled with wonder and metaphor. Birds have been long recognized as both literal and figurative messengers. Their regular migrations mark the change in seasons, with bluebirds foretelling the arrival of spring and long vees of geese the coming winter. And they are also swift couriers, arcing across the open sky to carry forward our desires. Bosworth discovered gestures in Renaissance paintings by Fra Angelico and Lorenzo Veneziano that resembled her own images: "I was amazed by a painting of a saint with his arms extended, releasing a bird towards heaven. It reminded me of the motion made when these captive birds are set free." In her photographs, we sense the quick pulse and energy of these delicate creatures, poised to take flight the instant they are released.

Earth and Sky: Photographs by Barbara Bosworth exhibition label