Louis Agassiz Fuertes

, illustrator and artist.

Fuertes decided to concentrate on painting birds as a career after meeting Elliott Coues in 1894 while on a trip to Washington, D.C. with the Cornell University Glee Club. He would receive the first of his many commissions for illustrating birds while still an undergraduate. At Cornell, he was elected to the Sphinx Head Society, the oldest senior honor society at the University. In 1899, he accompanied E. H. Harriman on his famous exploration of the Alaska coastline. Following this, Fuertes would travel across much of the United States and to many countries in pursuit of birds, including the Bahamas, Jamaica, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, and Ethiopia. Fuertes collaborated with Frank Chapman, Curator of the Museum of Natural History, on many assignments including field research, background dioramas at the museum, and book illustrations. While on a collecting expedition with Chapman in Mexico, Fuertes discovered a species of oriole. Chapman would name the bird after his friend, Iceterus fuertesi, commonly called Fuerte’s Oriole. [Robert McCracken Peck, "A Celebration of Birds, The Life and Art of Louis Agassiz Fuertes" (Published for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia by Walker and Company, 1982), p. 126.] He lectured on ornithology at Cornell University from 1923, and the libraries there hold extensive collections of his artwork and personal papers. In 1926-27 Fuertes participated in the Chicago Field Museum/Daily News Abyssinian (Ethiopia) Expedition led by Wilfred Hudson Osgood. He would produce some of his most exquisite bird and mammal watercolors as a result of this trip. Tragically, he lost his life in an accident not long after returning to his home in Ithaca, New York. Fuertes would be a major influence on many wildlife artists to follow including George Miksch Sutton, who he mentored, and Roger Tory Peterson.

Works

In his lifetime Fuertes illustrated more than 60 books and contributed hundreds of works for magazine articles. ["Louis Agassiz and the Singular Beauty of Birds", ed. Frederick Marcham (Harper and Row, Publishers, 1971), p. 9.] The following are some noted books published during and after his lifetime.

*"Citizen Bird" by Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliot Coues. Macmillan Company, 1896.

*"Key to North American Birds" by Elliot Coues. Estes & Lauriat, 1903.

*"Birds of New York" by Elon Howard Eaton. University of the State of New York, 1910.

*"Wild Animals of North America" by Edward W. Nelson. National Geographic Society, 1918

*"Birds of Massachusetts and Other New England States" by Edward Howe Forbush. Massachusetts Department of Agriculture, 1925.

*Fuertes painted 16 color plates for the book written by Wilfred Hudson Osgood, titled "Artist and Naturalist in Ethiopia, Garden City: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1936." This book records the 1926–27 Chicago Field Museum/Daily News Ethiopian Expedition. Fuertes died only weeks after returning from the trip.

*"The Bird Life of Texas" by Harry Church Oberholser. University of Texas Press, 1974.

Honors

In 1927, the Boy Scouts of America made Fuertes an "Honorary Scout", a new category of Scout created that same year. This distinction was give to "American citizens whose achievements in outdoor activity, exploration and worthwhile adventure are of such an exceptional character as to capture the imagination of boys...". The other eighteen who were awarded this distinction were: Roy Chapman Andrews; Robert Bartlett; Frederick Russell Burnham; Richard E. Byrd; George Kruck Cherrie; James L. Clark; Merian C. Cooper; Lincoln Ellsworth; George Bird Grinnell; Charles A. Lindbergh; Donald Baxter MacMillan; Clifford H. Pope; George Palmer Putnam; Kermit Roosevelt; Carl Rungius; Stewart Edward White; Orville Wright. cite journal |last= |first= |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1927 |month=August 29 |title=Around the World |journal=Time (magazine) |volume= |issue= |pages= |id= |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,723029,00.html |accessdate= 2007-10-24 |quote= ]

External links

*
* [http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/Birds/ Cornell University] --has links to material on Harriman Expedition, many digitized images of art

Notes

References

*Peck, Robert McCracken. " A Celebration of Birds, The Life and Art of Louis Agassiz Fuertes". Published for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia by Walker and Company, 1982. ISBN 0-8027-0716-5

*"Louis Agassiz and the Singular Beauty of Birds". Frederick George Marcham, Editor. Harper and Row, Publishers, 1971. ISBN 06-012775-9

*Norelli, Martina R. "American Wildlife Painting" (Fuertes, Audubon, Heade, Wilson, Thayer, Catesby) Watson-Guptill Publications, 1975. ISBN 0-8230-0217-9

ee also

*List of wildlife artists