The Tale of Johnny Nutkin

Walton Ford established his reputation in the 1990s with his monumental watercolor paintings of wild animals inspired by true or legendary stories of dramatic encounters between man and nature. Early on, his admiration for John James Audubon led him to create many images of birds. This print is based on Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin (1903) in which Nutkin taunts an old owl, who ends up biting his tail. Ford's depiction, in which a group of angry squirrels attack the owl turns the story into a metaphor for contemporary Great Britain politics, alluding to the reforms brought by Tony Blair's New Labour government in 2000 toward a more egalitarian society.
Printed on white Somerset Satin paper by Peter Pentingill at Wingate Studio, Hinsdale, New Hampshire.
Published by Blue Heron Press Inc., New York.