In this impressive and hefty volume, photographer Audrey Hall brilliantly captures the spirit of the American bison and the landscape of the American West. Woven among her images is a beautifully written essay by author Chase Reynolds Ewald, sharing the bison’s history, cultural significance, and recovery from the brink of extinction, as well as insights from ranchers, wildlife managers, policymakers, and artists.
According to Ewald, “Like many North Americans, bison are the descendants of immigrants. Somewhere around 200,000 years ago, small herds of bison grazed their way east across Beringia, the broad grassy steppe that connected eastern Asia to Alaska when the sea level was three hundred feet lower than it is today,” becoming the first American bison.
The American bison goes by many names. “To scientists and park administrators, it is bison. To many native people, it’s buffalo. To the Lakota, it’s Tatanka.”
Paintings of the prehistoric bison have been found on the walls of caves at Lascaux, dating back as early as 15,000 B.C., and its image remains popular in artwork today. According to artist Terrance Guardipee, when creating a work of art featuring buffalo, “I’m honoring the animal that has sustained my tribe and family for thousands of years. That is what makes me who I am as an artist. I honor my ancestors as truthfully as I can. Hopefully they see me doing it and look favorably upon me.”
This informative and compassionate work of art also includes a forward by natural history presenter and filmmaker John Heminway and an essay by Montana Poet Laureate Henry Real Bird.
A magnificent tribute to this majestic creature.
About the Photographer
Audrey Hall has been working with a camera for two decades. Her career in the visual arts includes over a hundred feature, commercial, documentary, book and fine art projects for a wide variety of national and international clients. A Rotary scholar, she studied photography at the renowned Glasgow School of Art in Scotland. She lives in Montana.
About the Author
Chase Reynolds Ewald has been writing about design, travel and lifestyle for 30 years. She is senior editor of Western Art & Architecture magazine and the author of a dozen books. She resides in Tiburon, California.
Publisher: Gibbs Smith