Alex Cooper Auctioneers will conduct its Centennial Auction on September 26 and 27, 2024. The sale includes many remarkable items, worthy of the celebration of such a milestone.
The sale features a rare set of Rex Brasher’s landmark book, BIRDS AND TREES OF NORTH AMERICA, published in an edition of about 75 copies between 1929 and 1932. It will cross the block on Friday the 27th as Lot 1360. The set comprises twelve volumes, with over 800 hand-colored images accompanied by descriptive text. Each volume is folio size, bound in leather with color-printed boards and housed in the original box that Brasher prepared for it. This set is very likely the finest one available.
Lot 1360, Brasher, Birds & Trees of North America, Ltd. Ed.
Brasher was born in New York in 1869. His father was an avid naturalist and taxidermist, and the boy spent much of his youth on field trips with his father. Soon, his creative energies were focused on painting birds and landscapes. He resolved, like Audubon, to document all the known species of birds living in the Continental United States. With determination and a gambler’s luck, he travelled around the country, painting, working at odd jobs, betting on horses, and playing poker to pay his way. More than once, he was bankrupt, and more than once, he threw away his artworks in frustration.
In 1911, he returned to New England and purchased a farm near Kent, Connecticut, reportedly with money won at a horse race. There he settled in to work his notes into a formal commentary and complete his set of artworks, a process of many years. His half-niece and her family joined him on the farm and assisted in his work, which carried on into the mid-1920s. Brasher approached several printers. All of them informed him that the cost of producing so many color plates would be prohibitively expensive.
Photo credit: Wikipedia
Always inventive and industrious, Brasher decided to enroll a group of subscribers to fund the project. Instead of color printing, the printer reproduced the art in a light gray-scale photogravure on paper made especially for the project. Unfinished prints housed in a barn fitted for the project, Brasher and his niece created five or more stencils for each image and set about coloring each one by hand with watercolor and airbrush. They completed work on their first volume (actually Vol. XII in the series) devoted to wrens, creepers, and similar birds in 1929. The books took years to complete, with the last volumes appearing in 1932.
Originally, Brasher hoped to enlist subscribers for 500 sets. The books were quite expensive, however, at $100 per volume, at a time when a working man earned 2 or 3 dollars a day. He came up just short of 100 subscribers, barely enough to fund the project. By 1932, the Depression had taken firm hold of the American economy. Many subscribers lost their fortunes, and they cancelled orders. Even though Brasher found some new subscribers, it is thought that only about 75 sets went out.
Lot 1360, Brasher, Birds & Trees of North America, Ltd. Ed.
Notwithstanding, Brasher’s art was beautiful and highly accurate. His commentary was very personal and full of lore gained by direct experience. The book has remained a classic ever since. On very rare occasions, they do appear on the market, generating intense interest. Opportunities to acquire a set as fine as this are increasingly rare.
Alex Cooper is always interested in selling fine and rare books, such as those previously mentioned. Please feel free to reach out to Richard Hall or other members of our professional staff for a consultation.
Richard Hall
Specialist of Rare Books & Ephemera