The first time you see a work by Walton Ford, you may think it’s an image from the 18th or 19th century. His watercolor of a dying woodcock, for instance, has a title written in antique script—Sic semper tyrannis (Thus always to tyrants). Learning that it’s dated 2003, one thinks, well yes, there is something perverse here. Worms, a favorite food of woodcocks, are crawling toward the fallen bird to take their revenge. John James Audubon looms large in Ford’s retinal memory, and like Audubon, Ford works in watercolor on a magisterial scale. But unlike Audubon, Ford makes comment with his images, moving into the mythic, the magical, the bestial. He’s a meticulous naturalist, yet has a ferocious eye and a scary dark wit. This exhibition celebrates the artist’s gift to the Morgan: 63 studies, including detailed renderings made from observation in zoos and museums of natural history, quick compositional sketches, and small watercolors in which Ford establishes his color scheme. It also features a selection of animal drawings by earlier artists, from Peter Paul Rubens to Eugène Delacroix to Audubon, selected by Ford from the Morgan’s collection. —Laura Jacobs