The First American Coloring Book(s): Theodore de Bry – America: The Complete Plates, 1590-1602

Date/Time
Date(s) – October 3, 2019
7:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Location
The Mariners’ Museum and Park,
100 Museum Drive,
Newport News, VA, United States

Categories

• Art, Music, Theatre
• General Family Events
• Informational

Tags
#marinersmuseum, art, author, book, history, museum

On a trip to London in 1588, renowned engraver Theodore de Bry met artist John White and mathematician Thomas Harriot, both recently returned from Sir Walter Raleigh’s mission to explore the “new found land of Virginia.” Inspired by White’s watercolors of North American Indians and Harriot’s maps of the Carolina coast’s barrier islands, de Bry published Grand Voyages, a series of exploration narratives illustrated with his own copper plate engravings. De Bry invited many European artists to hand-color the engravings that essentially became America’s first coloring books. Never before have these “complete plates” been published in one exquisite, oversized volume, co-authored by Larry E. Tise.

Tise, now a Philadelphia-based historian, spent the last decade traveling across Europe and America, examining all known and accessible copies of de Bry’s books in libraries, museums (including The Mariners’ Museum), and private collections. Tise holds a PhD from the University of North Carolina, and was a history administrator for many years.

FREE for Members; $5 for guests