In past posts presenting illustrations of California condors, I have grouped illustrations by source or kind. For a change, here is an mixed set of published illustrations, ranging from a simple sketch to works of fine art.
While some of the details are right, this first illustration, by Carl Eytel, doesn’t quite say “California condor” to me:
Eytel’s work appears in George Wharton James’s The Wonders of the Colorado Desert (Southern California), published by Little, Brown in 1906.
This painting by Siqing Zhou is titled “California Condor”:
The above is from an advertisement in the November 1987 issue of ARTnews magazine.
Here is a beautiful painting by Kevin Kibsey from the June 2004 issue Arizona Highways magazine:
This uncredited illustration is from a book for children, Gerald Legg’s Monster Animals, published in 2006 by Alligator:
The next 2 paintings appear in the August 2014 issue of Southwest Art magazine. This is “California Condor” by Britt Freda:
The 2nd painting is of California condor habitat. “Towering Clouds” by Logan Maxwell Hagege reveals the Vermilion Cliffs, where condors bred in captivity are released to Arizona’s wilds:
From the Fall 2016 issue of Audubon magazine, under the title “The Illustrated Aviary”, here is a “reimagining” of John James Audubon’s California condor by Joe Ciardiello:
According to the text accompanying Ciardiello’s work, his subjects are typically people, living or not. The accompanying text explains:
With the condor’s wrinkles and adornment of spiky black feathers, Ciardiello sees it as having almost human characteristics. “Even though it’s this scavenger, there’s something noble about its appearance,” he says. “I thought of it as just doing another portrait.”
Finally, a late entry by an uncredited artist:
The above is from Harper & Row’s Complete Field Guide to North American Wildlife: Western Edition, edited by Jay Ellis Ransom and published in 1981.
Pseudogryps 