A Lifetime of Birds

Celebrate the natural world with five decades of art drawn in pen and ink by prolific and award-winning North Carolina artist Edrie Bradley Knight. Whether soaring in flight or bursting into song, birds have a way of capturing the human imagination. Over the course of five decades, artist Edrie Bradley Knight’s fascination with these creatures grew into a series of drawings that inspire joy and wonder in our natural world. From 1971 to 2021, Knight brought birds to life in pen and ink drawings with the covers of the Knight family Christmas cards, spreading joy to friends and family around the globe. Now, for the first time, all drawings from her Christmas Birds series are collected here. From the backyard birds who frequent Knight’s North Carolina home, to magnificent creatures from far-flung regions, these drawings show a wide range of splendor in the animal kingdom. This journey through five decades of Knight’s incredible life and career celebrates the exquisite beauty of our feathered friends.

Author Biography

Edrie Bradley Knight was born in Gastonia, North Carolina in 1926. After graduating high school, she studied advertising design at the Maryland Institute of Art. She worked as an artist in advertising design for many years, including as a fashion artist at Efird’s Department Store and as the only traveling artist for Southern Bell Telephone Company. In 1959, she married Allen Knight and continued to work as a freelance commercial artist, drawing special art for Brady Printing Co., Monday Company, furniture designers, churches, and of course, her pen-and-ink Christmas cards featuring birds. She has exhibited her art in 424 art shows in North Carolina, including 76 one-woman shows, three one-woman shows with over 100 paintings, and one one-woman show with over 100 black-and-white pieces of art. Her work is award-winning in many mediums, including watercolor, photography, pen and ink, charcoal, oil, egg tempera and watercolor, pencil, acrylic, and sculpture. Her oil and wax painting “Let’s Pretend” toured the United States for one year after winning the North Carolina Award from the Federation of Women’s Clubs. Her many media appearances include profiles in Statesville Living Magazine, the Statesville Record and Landmark, and WBTV’s Carolina Camera. In 1996, she received an honorary Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Maryland Institute College of Art. From 1982 to 2022, she taught watercolor painting at Mitchell Community College. She lives in the town that has been her home for decades: Statesville, North Carolina.