Selby’s Circles Exhibit Opens to the Public

In 1819, a young aristocrat living on the border of England and Scotland embarked on an extraordinary project: the life-size depiction of every type of bird to be found in Britain, on land and water, native and migrant alike.

Over the next 15 years, Prideaux John Selby would produce hundreds of large hand-colored etchings which show the plumage, behavior, and lifecycle of birds in meticulous detail.

Selby’s Circles: Art & Nature in Romantic Britain is the first museum exhibition ever devoted to Selby, a “British Audubon” who had a major influence on other naturalists (Charles Darwin among them) but whose work is less well-known today. Selby was more interested in what living beings shared than in what divided them. His etchings illustrate his radically Romantic philosophy of nature as a set of interconnected circles in which creatures have affinities with each other.

This exhibit runs October 9, 2026–January 4, 2027. Included with Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History  admission, Members are always free. The gallery is ADA accessible; visit our accessibility page for more information.