Speaker: Rosamond Purcell, photographer
Acclaimed photographer Rosamond Purcell has been interested in fantastical imagery from early modern books for much of her career. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Holland’s spectacular cabinets of curiosity– collections of natural and manmade wonders of the world–featured doubles: placing a two-headed kitten next to a double carrot, conjoined twins, or an apple with two heads. Similar anomalies are found across the kingdoms of life. This talk will cover ideas about hybrid beings, the illusion of the monstrous and the fluidity of natural forms.
Friends of the Rare Book Room are invited to come at 6:00pm to look at selected books with the speaker in the Drs. Barry and Bobbi Coller Rare Book Reading Room prior to the talk; limit is 20 people. This event is part of our series for Friends. Dinner and wine are provided for all during the talk. For ticket details, please visit the event website.
Rosamond Purcell is a photographer known for her work in natural history collections and for the recreation of the seventeenth century Danish museum of Ole Worm. Her books include Egg & Nest, Bookworm, and Dice: Deception, Fate and Rotten Luck with Ricky Jay. She is the author of Owls Head: On the Nature of Lost Things, a biography of a junkyard.
This event is sponsored by the New York Academy of Medicine.
