Alfred Russel Wallace: The Forgotten Evolutionist
Introduction
In 2007, artist Fred Langford Edwards was awarded a grant by The Wellcome Trust for a 30 month project to research and promote the contributions of Alfred Russel Wallace to the theories of Natural Selection and Evolution.
In London on July 1st, 1858, at the first public reading of the Wallace and Darwin papers on Natural Selection, Wallace and Darwin were given equal status and recognition.
During 2009, much media attention is being given to Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. Darwin is celebrated whilst Wallace has faded from the popular history of scientific thought. Fred’s project is to generate artworks, publications and activities which will reinstate Wallace as a major contributor to the ideas and processes which explain how species gradually change to create new types of beings.
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Working with Dr George Beccaloni of the Natural History Museum, the project has taken Fred to the Amazon Basin and the Malay Archipelago. The resulting work explores the life, ideas, and surviving collections of Wallace, and the physical hardships he endured during his travels. This is a stunning photographic exhibition charting an important chapter in natural history.
Find out more
| Introduction | The Specimens | In the Amazon Basin |
| In the Malay Archipelago | Biography |