Robert Stroud, the real Birdman made famous by the film, drew a checkerboard on the inside covers to keep himself occupied while in isolation cells
Robert Stroud, also known as the Birdman of Alcatraz, served 54 years in prison, 42 of them segregated from fellow inmates, before his death in 1963. His fame came not from shooting a bartender in 1909 to avenge a prostitute whom he pimped, nor from fatally stabbing a guard in 1916 while serving his manslaughter sentence at the Leavenworth, Kansas, penitentiary. (He was nearly hanged for the second homicide, but his mother petitioned President Woodrow Wilson, who commuted his sentence to life in prison.) Rather, Stroud is remembered for his unusual devotion to the birds he caught or bought and cared for while in prison.
Next month, Christie’s will auction Stroud’s copy of the Atlas of Avian Anatomy (1943), enhanced by a hand-drawn checkerboard on the book’s rear endpapers, at its annual Out of the Ordinary sale in South Kensington, London. The auction estimate is between £3,000 and £5,000 ($4,000 and $6,600).
Continue reading...
0 comments:
Post a Comment