John James Audubon (April 26, 1785 - January 27,1851)
( About John James Audubon, Important Books, Documentaries, and Links )
A self-portrait by Audubon in 1826.
Will there be another person like John James Audubon in our lifetime? Probably not! Audubon was larger than life, a handsome and a charming immigrant who remained mysterious about his early childhood while he tried to cover up his humble origins as an illegitimate child born in Saint-Domingue (modern Haiti), a dashing figure, a painter, self-taught scientist, ornithologist, and a prolific writer. Audubon was an expert hunter, a superb raconteur, didn't hesitate sometimes to embellish his background and might even have told a tall tale or two of his adventures and discoveries in the wild if he thought it would help him gain acceptance, an entertaining story teller who was popular as a dinner guest, quite capable of defending himself with a knife when attacked, declared bankruptcy, spent a few days in jail, a skilled dancer and musician, and was very devoted to his wife and children.
Audubon was also a product of his times - - like his father, and like many of his compatriots ranging from several US Presidents (from George Washington to Ulysses Grant) to property owners at various economic levels including several free black people in the pre-Civil War South (who, incredibly, bought several slaves of their own, with many owning slaves in double digit numbers! And these free black people put their slaves to labor on their own estates and plantations, a fact brushed aside by Audubon's critics these days!), Audubon also relied on the help of a few slaves while in Kentucky to capture live specimens for his paintings and help him with chores.
Audubon endured considerable vitriol during his life, and incredibly he is still subjected to it even today, over 170 years after his death! After suffering incredible hardships, ridicule of his art, vitriol directed against him, personal and family tragedies, business failures, and many sacrifices, John James Audubon finally achieved international acclaim and recognition as the author of the greatest and the most magnificent ornithological work of art of all time, viz., "The Birds of America".
Audubon distinguished himself in many ways from all the previous ornithologists who painted birds (e.g., British ornithologists Mark Catesby and Alexander Wilson), and in doing so, he displayed his pure genius and natural talent in painting the birds. Audubon decided to paint his birds in their true natural size, thereby necessitating for him to use the double elephant folio size paper (approximately 39 1/2” x 26 1/2”) for his engravings so that he could fit very large birds (e.g., the Wild Turkey (Male), White Pelican, American Flamingo, Great Blue Heron, etc) as well as smaller birds on them. Whereas all the earlier ornithologists tended to depict the birds in a profile form, and often looking stiff and without any expression, according to the Audubon scholar William Souder (see his book listed below), Audubon developed a wiring technique that enabled him to display birds in their natural form and paint them, for the first time, as observed by him in Nature. Next, to reproduce the exact dimensions of the captured bird onto his paintings, he used a double grid system - - one on the mounting board with the wired bird, and an identical grid penciled on the drafting paper. He captured the live drama as it unfolded (e.g., see the Mocking Bird or Virginian Partridge or Canada Otter). And he surpassed all the earlier ornithologists and naturalists in the way he painted his birds and animals with exquisite details and colors and sometimes even emotions, often showing the finest details such as the barbs on a bird's feather, capturing the look of terror and shock in the mocking bird’s eyes under attack by a rattle snake invading its nest, the panic and confusion in a covey of partridges caught by surprise by an attacking immature Red-shouldered Hawk, the male Barn Owl cozying up to its mate to share its dinner, the pain and fury of a Canada Otter with its paw caught in a cruel steel trap set up by a hunter, or the snarling of the American Cross Fox warning an intruder to stay away from its dinner. Another innovation introduced by Audubon in bird paintings - - wherever he could, he cleverly positioned and painted the birds to display different views and details of the bird's plumage (e.g., see Prothonotary Warbler , Red-tailed Hawk, Barn Owl , Turn Stone, or Carolina Parrot etc). Sometimes, he also painted the birds in the same painting to show their plumage during different seasons (e.g., see Turn-stone, Red-backed Sandpiper). Audubon included spectacular background sceneries in some of his bird images (e.g., see Yellow Shank, Yellow-crowned Heron, Goosander, as well as the Roseate Spoonbill image at the top of the Home Page for this website). He included the charming early 19th century views of historic towns like Charleston (Long-billed Curlew ), Baltimore (Canvass Back Duck), and St. Augustine (Greenshank), and rice plantations (e.g., Snowy Heron) in the background of some images. Audubon captured very successfully, the moments of tenderness between the mating birds (e.g., White-headed Pigeon, Passenger Pigeon). In some images, he even painted one of the birds engaging the viewer, as if the bird is cautiously watching (e.g., Black Vulture, Long-billed Curlew)!
Audubon's unique style in painting the birds (by incorporating all these significant innovations listed above, including painting the birds in their natural size) can be viewed as a "quantum leap" over the prevailing practices in the field of ornithological art at that time. It is no wonder that Audubon's original art work remains so popular, enduring, and timeless!
Despite the dismissal of his genius work by the Philadelphia art establishment that would have probably discouraged a lesser mortal forever (and in particular by the vicious ridicule of his paintings by the influential George Ord of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia who successfully managed to blackball Audubon from getting any recognition at that time), Audubon persevered with singular determination and focus, and succeeded in producing his magnificent and historic masterpiece of art, the double elephant folio size Havell edition of "The Birds of America" (BOA). The backgrounds in his bird images were painted by talented artists such as Joseph Mason, George Lehman, Maria Martin, Robert Havell, as well as Audubon and his sons. The subscribers to the BOA also received a copy of the "Ornithological Biography" (OB) in which Audubon described the habits of the birds that he painted. He followed the Birds of America with the publication of the Imperial Folio edition of "The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America" containing magnificent stone lithographs of our native quadrupeds.
During his stay at the Mill Grove Estate in Pennsylvania, Audubon tried to explore the migration habits of pewees by tagging individual nestlings with string gently tied to one of their legs before they took off from the nest, thereby pioneering the technique of bird banding. His detailed notes in his Ornithological Biography show his keen observation of the habits of the birds in the wild (we have reproduced some of his observations in the Havell Edition Gallery). In his later years, Audubon was one of the first to raise alarm about the destruction of bird habitats and the wanton hunting of birds, and the potential of this hunting and loss of habitat to cause extinction of some bird species (indeed, some species that were abundant during Audubon’s time are now extinct, such as the Passenger Pigeon, the Carolina Parrot, Ivory-billed Woodpecker, and the Great Auk, to mention a few). Even though some modern historians have criticized Audubon for killing several birds needlessly when all he needed was one bird (or a few) for his drawing, let us not forget that Audubon was a perfectionist himself; and so perhaps, may be it could be argued that Audubon needed a large number of birds from which he could select the very perfect male, female and immature bird specimens (or may be even a few for a composite of each) for use in his drawings. And, to quote the Audubon scholar William Souder (see the reference below to his book), "..... field ornithology has in truth changed little since then. Modern ornithologists still collect bird specimens all over the world. They still shoot them with shot guns. Many of these same scientists are both conservationists and avid bird hunters".
Unlike in Philadelphia where his work was dismissed (thus necessitating his travel to England to find a suitable publisher of his work), Audubon gained wide recognition in Europe by elections as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (F.R.S.E.), the Linnean Society (F.L.S.), and the Royal Society of London (F.R.S.). Subsequently, the National Audubon Society in America as well as the National Wild Life Preserve, several Nature Centers, many parks and streets in our country were named after John James Audubon. His name is now essentially synonymous with the protection of birds and other wild life, and their habitats. The United Sates Postal Service issued several commemorative stamps honoring the great naturalist Audubon and his art work. For Audubon’s intriguing biography and his art, the reader is referred to several excellent books by some eminent Audubon scholars, as well as documentary videos (see the sections below on Important Books about Audubon and His Art and Documentaries about Audubon). While the documentaries are excellent, his personal life story itself is worthy of a full length Hollywood film.
Trivia tidbit: A Record-breaking Sale!
A copy of the double elephant folio set (the Lord Hesketh set) of the Birds of America by Audubon sold at Sotheby’s Auction in London in December 2010 for a record breaking $11.5 million!
Trivia tidbit: Did you know there is a connection between John James Audubon and Sherlock Holmes?
Well, actually, a connection with the actor who played the role of Sherlock Holmes - - the owner of this gallery had noticed, one night in the year 2010 while watching a B&W Sherlock Holmes movie on the TV, that the character of Sherlock Holmes was played by an actor named Mr. Basil Rathbone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes_(1939_film_series)). His last name immediately caught the owner's attention because, in 1826, after leaving New Orleans with his stack of watercolor paintings and arriving in Britain on a ship, Audubon visited a Richard Rathbone in Liverpool/England with whom he became good friends, and even honored him by naming a warbler after him (Rathbone Warbler, Havell Plate #65. Also see Plate 89 in the Bien edition section). After some digging, this is what he found - - Richard Rathbone's (1788-1860) elder brother William Rathbone V (1787-1868) was the great grand father of Basil Rathbone (1892-1967) who made a name for himself by playing Sherlock Holmes in the 1940's era movies. There you have it!
Trivia tidbit: The Mystery of the Red-winged Blackbird Bird Pose (Havell Plate 67).
Did Audubon plagiarize the “male Red-winged Blackbird pose” (Havell Plate 67) from Alexander Wilson’s engraving? Or could it be that Alexander Wilson himself plagiarized this bird pose from Audubon? While scholars and critics heatedly debate among themselves about this issue, we make here a modest observation: The question we ask ourselves is, did John James Audubon, despite his phenomenal originality and creative talent in composing magnificent poses for his birds (e.g., see his paintings of the Carolina Parrot, Barn Owl, Red Tailed Hawk, Virginian Partridge, Mocking Bird, Wild Turkey, Roseate Spoonbill, Black-bellied Darter, Common Cormorant, Summer or Wood Duck, etc), get so desperate that he needed to plagiarize a few rather mundane bird poses from someone else’s work for use in his Birds of America (BOA)? Or is there a much simpler explanation for the somewhat seemingly similar-looking simple and mundane poses in a small handful of his bird images? It seems that the explanation might indeed be rather simple (see below) - - perhaps, Audubon might have intended his images in the BOA to serve as a critique of the bird drawings of some earlier artists including Alexander Wilson; after all, the Philadelphia art establishment dismissed Audubon's art while embracing Wilson's work.
A valuable insight into this question about the pose of the male Red-winged Blackbird comes from the illuminating comments in her magnificent work Audubon’s Aviary/ The Original Watercolors for "The Birds of America" by the noted Audubon Scholar and the Curator of the New York Historical Society Museum, Dr. Roberta Olson. She wrote “Citing Wilson for taxonomy in OB, Audubon intended his closely related pose as a critique of Wilson’s flat silhouette. By comparison, his own depiction marks a vast improvement in anatomy, proportions, tactility, and ability to soar. Ironically, Wilson’s male probably depended on an earlier pastel by JJA which Wilson may have seen at their meeting in Louisville in late March 1810.” (Note: Audubon drew his original pastel of the Red-winged Blackbird in the familiar pose long before he ever met Wilson. His pastel shows the male bird with a protruding tongue, a feature also found in Wilson’s engraving). Dr. Olson went on to write “Arguably, Audubon’s pastel was the prototype for Wilson’s silhouette and protruding tongue, a feature JJA eliminated in his watercolor. In return, however, Audubon appropriated the pose for the juvenile at the lower right of his watercolor nearly verbatim from the female in Wilson’s plate although he improved its tactility and anatomy. His watercolor therefore embodies a complex competition with Wilson in which Audubon takes the prize”. Thus, indeed it appears very likely that it was Alexander Wilson that might have plagiarized the pose (including the protruding tongue) for the male Red-winged Blackbird from Audubon’s earlier drawing (pastel, graphite and ink on paper).
Trivia tidbit: Plate 357 - American Magpie - - watercolor paintings.
There are at least two known watercolor paintings of the American Magpie (Havell Plate 357) by John James Audubon in existence -- one in the New-York Historical Society Audubon Gallery, and one in the collection of one of the finest Art Museums in the Nation, viz., the Birmingham Museum of Art (BMA) in Alabama. After a careful comparison of the Havell engraved image with these two watercolor paintings, the owner of this gallery concluded in 2007 that the painting at the Birmingham Museum of Art was most likely used by Robert Havell for his engraving. The painting in the New-York Historical Society collection appears to be a variant with a slight difference in the placement of tree branch w.r.t. the birds.
John James Audubon Biography:
https://www.biography.com/scientist/john-james-audubon
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_James_Audubon
John James Audubon Timeline:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/john-james-audubon-career-timeline/107/
Some Important Books about Audubon and His Art:
(Primary sources of information for some of the content on this website)
(1) Audubon’s Aviary: The Original Watercolors for “The Birds of America", by Roberta J. M. Olson, published by the Skira Rizzoli Publications, Inc and New-York Historical Society, 2012.
(2) John James Audubon / The Making of An American, by Richard Rhodes, Alfred A Knopf, New York, 2004.
(3) Under a Wild Sky / John James Audubon and the Making of the Birds of America, by William Souder, North Point Press, New York, 2004.
(4) Audubon Art Prints / A Collector’s Guide to Every Edition, by Bill Steiner, University of South Carolina press, 2003.
(5) Audubon’s Great National Work / The Royal Octavo Edition of the Birds of America, by Ron Tyler, University of Texas press, Austin, 1993.
(6) A Guide to Audubon’s Birds of America, by Susanne M. Low, William Reese Co & Donald A. Heald, New Haven and New York, 2002.
(7) The Double Elephant Folio / The Story of Audubon’s Birds of America, by Waldemar H. Fries, Zenaida Publishing, Inc., Amherst, MA, 2006.
(8) John James Audubon / Writings & Drawings, by Christoph Irmscher (Editor), The Library of America, 1999.
(9) The Imperial Collection of Audubon Animals / The Quadrupeds of North America. Original Text by John James Audubon, F.R.S., and Rev. John Bachman, D.D., Edited and with new text by Victor H. Cahalane. Bonanza Books, New York, 1967.
(10) The Birds of America: The Bien Chromolithographic Edition, Hard Cover, Facsimile, September 30, 2013, Text by Joel Oppenheimer, W. W. Norton & Company. The first complete reproduction of Bien chromolithographs of Audubon's Birds of America.
(11) Audubon, The Kentucky Years, by L. Clark Keating, The University Press of Kentucky, 1976.
(12) A Summer of Birds / John James Audubon at Oakley House, by Danny Heitman, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 2008.
Some Documentaries about Audubon and his art:
John James Audubon: THE BIRDS OF AMERICA, A National Gallery of Art Presentation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQijoWmzvTo
A Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld5XW9zA_fI
How Audubon’s Birds of America Changed Natural History (by Selby Kiffer, Sotheby's)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_qDRpNwShI
Audubon’s Birds of America, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElD_Qx_lPls
Dr. Roberta Olson, Curator, New-York Historical Society and Professor of Art History Emerita, Wheaton College, delivers a lecture entitled "Rara avis: John James Audubon: Artist, Naturalist, and Early Conservationist." She is also the author of "Audubon’s Aviary: The Original Watercolors for “The Birds of America" (see the Important Books listed above).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY_CStGvhRY
Audubon and the Art of Birds - Curator Tour by Don Luce, Bell Museum of Natural History, University of Minnesota https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIpv4zdr1Jc
The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America. John James Audubon & John Bachman. Peter Harrington, London,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5peJmx2API
Some Major Audubon Historical Sites:
(1) John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove, PA
Mill Grove was the first home of John James Audubon in America. He was 18 years old. He also met his future wife, Lucy Bakewell, in an estate adjoining Mill Grove. Visitors can tour the historic stone farm house where Audubon lived, and view on display one of the original volumes of The Birds of America and The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America.
https://johnjames.audubon.org/node/5266/explore-museum
(2) Audubon Museum and Nature Center, Henderson, KY
In 1810, Audubon and his young family (wife Lucy, and his elder son Victor Gifford born in Louisville in 1809) moved to Henderson, KY (then a frontier village), and lived there for about 9 years. It was a period of happiness but much tragedy too. His second son, John Woodhouse was born in Henderson in 1812 (a daughter, Lucy, born in 1815 died in infancy in 1817. A second daughter, Rose, born in 1819 also died in infancy in 1820). While he was away on a trip, several of his precious drawings that he stored in a wooden storage box were destroyed from infestation by Norway rats. Audubon tried several business ventures to support his young family (lumber/grist mill, General Store etc.) but was unsuccessful. Sadly, Audubon's log cabin house, his lumber/grist mill and Merchandise Store no longer exist; but Site Markers are in place to identify their historic locations. Among the exhibits, the Museum has a collection of Audubon's and Lucy's personal belongings, a rare bound four volume set of the Havell edition of The Birds of America, and bound volumes of the Bien edition of the Birds of America and Imperial Folio edition of the quadrupeds, an original copperplate used in the Havell Edition, and several original Havell edition engravings and Imperil Folio edition stone lithographs on display.
https://friendsofaudubon.org/museum-nature-center/
(3) Oakley Plantation House, St Francisville, LA
Audubon spent about four months at the Oakley Plantation House near St. Francisville, West Feliciana Parish in Louisiana. He painted anywhere between 23 to 32 of the bird images while working there (tutoring Eliza Pirrie, the teenage daughter of Mrs. Lucy Pirrie, the owner of the plantation). Visitors can view the small room on the ground floor where Audubon and his assistant Joseph Mason stayed. The Visitor Center has a display of several original Havell edition prints in an adjacent theater.
https://www.crt.state.la.us/louisiana-state-parks/historic-sites/audubon-state-historic-site/index
(4) Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum, 155 & Broadway, Manhattan, New York
The final resting place for the great naturalist John James Audubon is located in the Trinity Church cemetery, about a couple of blocks from the small estate on the Hudson river bank that he purchased and established in 1841. He called it "Minnie's Land", in honor of his devoted and very supportive wife, Lucy. Sadly, the clapboard house where Audubon and Lucy lived and their estate surrounding it no longer exist, having succumbed to the pressures of settling debts owed by the Audubon family after the death of Audubon, as well as to the intense pressures of subsequent urban development in that area over the years (see the next paragraph). With rapidly declining health and suffering from dementia in his final years, the great naturalist Audubon passed away on January 27, 1851 at the age of 65. His immediately family members were also buried at the same site after they passed away.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6102721/john-james-audubon
For more information about the estate overlooking the Hudson River in northern Manhattan that Audubon purchased in 1841 and about its tragic fate, the reader is directed to the following two excellent resources. They also contain photos of Audubon’s final residence and its neighborhood:
(i) “The Lost John James Audubon House--Riverside Drive near 156th Street”, an excellent and well-researched Blog by author Tom Miller:
https://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-lost-john-james-audubon-house.html
(ii) "THE NEIGHBORHOOD MANHATTAN FORGOT / AUDUBON PARK AND THE FAMILIES WHO SHAPED IT"
By Matthew Spady, Fordham University Press, Published: 2020. ISBN: 9780823289424
https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823289424/the-neighborhood-manhattan-forgot/
New-York Historical Society, Museum and Library:
In 1863, Lucy Bakewell Audubon, who by then already lost her beloved husband John James Audubon and her two sons (Victor Gifford and John Woodhouse) was financially strapped and struggling to support her grand children. The advent of the Civil War in 1860 destroyed the plans for the successful completion of the Bien edition of the Birds of America, and contributed to the financial ruin of the Audubon family, further exasperated by the premature deaths of Audubons' two sons in 1860 (Victor Gifford) and 1862 (John Woodhouse). Out of desperation to support her family and discharge financial debts (including debts incurred for the production of the Bien edition), Lucy Audubon sold all of the original watercolor paintings of her husband to the New-York Historical Society for a paltry sum of $4,000. This meager amount was mainly a reflection of the harsh reality of life during the American Civil War which was raging on all around at that time and made it very hard for the Society to raise funds for the purchase of art. These original watercolors by John James Audubon are priceless and are considered a National Treasure. They can be viewed at the New-York Historical Society Museum Gallery. Also see the book listed above : Audubon’s Aviary: The Original Watercolors for “The Birds of America", by Roberta J. M. Olson.
https://www.nyhistory.org/
National Audubon Society:
In 1886 George Grinnel (a student of Lucy Bakewell Audubon) founded the Audubon Society of New York, the forerunner of the National Audubon Society dedicated to the protection of birds and their habitat. The National Audubon Society currently has 23 state programs, 41 Audubon Nature Centers, and nearly 500 local chapters. The Society published the Abbeville Edition of the Birds of America in 1985 to commemorate the 200 year anniversary of the birth of the great naturalist and artist, as well as the Volair Edition of Audubon's Octavo Birds and Quadrupeds in 1978. More recently, it has collaborated with Gitler &_____ Gallery to create the Audubon Mural Project in New York City to bring attention to climate-threatened birds.
Finally, in our opinion, the National Audubon Society is to be commended for opting to retain Audubon’s name in its title after considerable debate, soul searching, and membership feedback about properly reconciling Audubon’s ownership of a few slaves in the early 19th century within the context of the period he lived in (please see the brief discussion of his slave ownership above) versus his monumental contributions to documenting American birds and quadrupeds, his magnificent and unparalleled art which portrayed them, and his expressed concerns about the loss of wildlife species from the destruction of their habitats.
https://www.audubon.org/
©2019 antiqueaudubon.com, All Rights Reserved
Audubon was also a product of his times - - like his father, and like many of his compatriots ranging from several US Presidents (from George Washington to Ulysses Grant) to property owners at various economic levels including several free black people in the pre-Civil War South (who, incredibly, bought several slaves of their own, with many owning slaves in double digit numbers! And these free black people put their slaves to labor on their own estates and plantations, a fact brushed aside by Audubon's critics these days!), Audubon also relied on the help of a few slaves while in Kentucky to capture live specimens for his paintings and help him with chores.
Audubon endured considerable vitriol during his life, and incredibly he is still subjected to it even today, over 170 years after his death! After suffering incredible hardships, ridicule of his art, vitriol directed against him, personal and family tragedies, business failures, and many sacrifices, John James Audubon finally achieved international acclaim and recognition as the author of the greatest and the most magnificent ornithological work of art of all time, viz., "The Birds of America".
Audubon distinguished himself in many ways from all the previous ornithologists who painted birds (e.g., British ornithologists Mark Catesby and Alexander Wilson), and in doing so, he displayed his pure genius and natural talent in painting the birds. Audubon decided to paint his birds in their true natural size, thereby necessitating for him to use the double elephant folio size paper (approximately 39 1/2” x 26 1/2”) for his engravings so that he could fit very large birds (e.g., the Wild Turkey (Male), White Pelican, American Flamingo, Great Blue Heron, etc) as well as smaller birds on them. Whereas all the earlier ornithologists tended to depict the birds in a profile form, and often looking stiff and without any expression, according to the Audubon scholar William Souder (see his book listed below), Audubon developed a wiring technique that enabled him to display birds in their natural form and paint them, for the first time, as observed by him in Nature. Next, to reproduce the exact dimensions of the captured bird onto his paintings, he used a double grid system - - one on the mounting board with the wired bird, and an identical grid penciled on the drafting paper. He captured the live drama as it unfolded (e.g., see the Mocking Bird or Virginian Partridge or Canada Otter). And he surpassed all the earlier ornithologists and naturalists in the way he painted his birds and animals with exquisite details and colors and sometimes even emotions, often showing the finest details such as the barbs on a bird's feather, capturing the look of terror and shock in the mocking bird’s eyes under attack by a rattle snake invading its nest, the panic and confusion in a covey of partridges caught by surprise by an attacking immature Red-shouldered Hawk, the male Barn Owl cozying up to its mate to share its dinner, the pain and fury of a Canada Otter with its paw caught in a cruel steel trap set up by a hunter, or the snarling of the American Cross Fox warning an intruder to stay away from its dinner. Another innovation introduced by Audubon in bird paintings - - wherever he could, he cleverly positioned and painted the birds to display different views and details of the bird's plumage (e.g., see Prothonotary Warbler , Red-tailed Hawk, Barn Owl , Turn Stone, or Carolina Parrot etc). Sometimes, he also painted the birds in the same painting to show their plumage during different seasons (e.g., see Turn-stone, Red-backed Sandpiper). Audubon included spectacular background sceneries in some of his bird images (e.g., see Yellow Shank, Yellow-crowned Heron, Goosander, as well as the Roseate Spoonbill image at the top of the Home Page for this website). He included the charming early 19th century views of historic towns like Charleston (Long-billed Curlew ), Baltimore (Canvass Back Duck), and St. Augustine (Greenshank), and rice plantations (e.g., Snowy Heron) in the background of some images. Audubon captured very successfully, the moments of tenderness between the mating birds (e.g., White-headed Pigeon, Passenger Pigeon). In some images, he even painted one of the birds engaging the viewer, as if the bird is cautiously watching (e.g., Black Vulture, Long-billed Curlew)!
Audubon's unique style in painting the birds (by incorporating all these significant innovations listed above, including painting the birds in their natural size) can be viewed as a "quantum leap" over the prevailing practices in the field of ornithological art at that time. It is no wonder that Audubon's original art work remains so popular, enduring, and timeless!
Despite the dismissal of his genius work by the Philadelphia art establishment that would have probably discouraged a lesser mortal forever (and in particular by the vicious ridicule of his paintings by the influential George Ord of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia who successfully managed to blackball Audubon from getting any recognition at that time), Audubon persevered with singular determination and focus, and succeeded in producing his magnificent and historic masterpiece of art, the double elephant folio size Havell edition of "The Birds of America" (BOA). The backgrounds in his bird images were painted by talented artists such as Joseph Mason, George Lehman, Maria Martin, Robert Havell, as well as Audubon and his sons. The subscribers to the BOA also received a copy of the "Ornithological Biography" (OB) in which Audubon described the habits of the birds that he painted. He followed the Birds of America with the publication of the Imperial Folio edition of "The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America" containing magnificent stone lithographs of our native quadrupeds.
During his stay at the Mill Grove Estate in Pennsylvania, Audubon tried to explore the migration habits of pewees by tagging individual nestlings with string gently tied to one of their legs before they took off from the nest, thereby pioneering the technique of bird banding. His detailed notes in his Ornithological Biography show his keen observation of the habits of the birds in the wild (we have reproduced some of his observations in the Havell Edition Gallery). In his later years, Audubon was one of the first to raise alarm about the destruction of bird habitats and the wanton hunting of birds, and the potential of this hunting and loss of habitat to cause extinction of some bird species (indeed, some species that were abundant during Audubon’s time are now extinct, such as the Passenger Pigeon, the Carolina Parrot, Ivory-billed Woodpecker, and the Great Auk, to mention a few). Even though some modern historians have criticized Audubon for killing several birds needlessly when all he needed was one bird (or a few) for his drawing, let us not forget that Audubon was a perfectionist himself; and so perhaps, may be it could be argued that Audubon needed a large number of birds from which he could select the very perfect male, female and immature bird specimens (or may be even a few for a composite of each) for use in his drawings. And, to quote the Audubon scholar William Souder (see the reference below to his book), "..... field ornithology has in truth changed little since then. Modern ornithologists still collect bird specimens all over the world. They still shoot them with shot guns. Many of these same scientists are both conservationists and avid bird hunters".
Unlike in Philadelphia where his work was dismissed (thus necessitating his travel to England to find a suitable publisher of his work), Audubon gained wide recognition in Europe by elections as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (F.R.S.E.), the Linnean Society (F.L.S.), and the Royal Society of London (F.R.S.). Subsequently, the National Audubon Society in America as well as the National Wild Life Preserve, several Nature Centers, many parks and streets in our country were named after John James Audubon. His name is now essentially synonymous with the protection of birds and other wild life, and their habitats. The United Sates Postal Service issued several commemorative stamps honoring the great naturalist Audubon and his art work. For Audubon’s intriguing biography and his art, the reader is referred to several excellent books by some eminent Audubon scholars, as well as documentary videos (see the sections below on Important Books about Audubon and His Art and Documentaries about Audubon). While the documentaries are excellent, his personal life story itself is worthy of a full length Hollywood film.
Trivia tidbit: A Record-breaking Sale!
A copy of the double elephant folio set (the Lord Hesketh set) of the Birds of America by Audubon sold at Sotheby’s Auction in London in December 2010 for a record breaking $11.5 million!
Trivia tidbit: Did you know there is a connection between John James Audubon and Sherlock Holmes?
Well, actually, a connection with the actor who played the role of Sherlock Holmes - - the owner of this gallery had noticed, one night in the year 2010 while watching a B&W Sherlock Holmes movie on the TV, that the character of Sherlock Holmes was played by an actor named Mr. Basil Rathbone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes_(1939_film_series)). His last name immediately caught the owner's attention because, in 1826, after leaving New Orleans with his stack of watercolor paintings and arriving in Britain on a ship, Audubon visited a Richard Rathbone in Liverpool/England with whom he became good friends, and even honored him by naming a warbler after him (Rathbone Warbler, Havell Plate #65. Also see Plate 89 in the Bien edition section). After some digging, this is what he found - - Richard Rathbone's (1788-1860) elder brother William Rathbone V (1787-1868) was the great grand father of Basil Rathbone (1892-1967) who made a name for himself by playing Sherlock Holmes in the 1940's era movies. There you have it!
Trivia tidbit: The Mystery of the Red-winged Blackbird Bird Pose (Havell Plate 67).
Did Audubon plagiarize the “male Red-winged Blackbird pose” (Havell Plate 67) from Alexander Wilson’s engraving? Or could it be that Alexander Wilson himself plagiarized this bird pose from Audubon? While scholars and critics heatedly debate among themselves about this issue, we make here a modest observation: The question we ask ourselves is, did John James Audubon, despite his phenomenal originality and creative talent in composing magnificent poses for his birds (e.g., see his paintings of the Carolina Parrot, Barn Owl, Red Tailed Hawk, Virginian Partridge, Mocking Bird, Wild Turkey, Roseate Spoonbill, Black-bellied Darter, Common Cormorant, Summer or Wood Duck, etc), get so desperate that he needed to plagiarize a few rather mundane bird poses from someone else’s work for use in his Birds of America (BOA)? Or is there a much simpler explanation for the somewhat seemingly similar-looking simple and mundane poses in a small handful of his bird images? It seems that the explanation might indeed be rather simple (see below) - - perhaps, Audubon might have intended his images in the BOA to serve as a critique of the bird drawings of some earlier artists including Alexander Wilson; after all, the Philadelphia art establishment dismissed Audubon's art while embracing Wilson's work.
A valuable insight into this question about the pose of the male Red-winged Blackbird comes from the illuminating comments in her magnificent work Audubon’s Aviary/ The Original Watercolors for "The Birds of America" by the noted Audubon Scholar and the Curator of the New York Historical Society Museum, Dr. Roberta Olson. She wrote “Citing Wilson for taxonomy in OB, Audubon intended his closely related pose as a critique of Wilson’s flat silhouette. By comparison, his own depiction marks a vast improvement in anatomy, proportions, tactility, and ability to soar. Ironically, Wilson’s male probably depended on an earlier pastel by JJA which Wilson may have seen at their meeting in Louisville in late March 1810.” (Note: Audubon drew his original pastel of the Red-winged Blackbird in the familiar pose long before he ever met Wilson. His pastel shows the male bird with a protruding tongue, a feature also found in Wilson’s engraving). Dr. Olson went on to write “Arguably, Audubon’s pastel was the prototype for Wilson’s silhouette and protruding tongue, a feature JJA eliminated in his watercolor. In return, however, Audubon appropriated the pose for the juvenile at the lower right of his watercolor nearly verbatim from the female in Wilson’s plate although he improved its tactility and anatomy. His watercolor therefore embodies a complex competition with Wilson in which Audubon takes the prize”. Thus, indeed it appears very likely that it was Alexander Wilson that might have plagiarized the pose (including the protruding tongue) for the male Red-winged Blackbird from Audubon’s earlier drawing (pastel, graphite and ink on paper).
Trivia tidbit: Plate 357 - American Magpie - - watercolor paintings.
There are at least two known watercolor paintings of the American Magpie (Havell Plate 357) by John James Audubon in existence -- one in the New-York Historical Society Audubon Gallery, and one in the collection of one of the finest Art Museums in the Nation, viz., the Birmingham Museum of Art (BMA) in Alabama. After a careful comparison of the Havell engraved image with these two watercolor paintings, the owner of this gallery concluded in 2007 that the painting at the Birmingham Museum of Art was most likely used by Robert Havell for his engraving. The painting in the New-York Historical Society collection appears to be a variant with a slight difference in the placement of tree branch w.r.t. the birds.
John James Audubon Biography:
https://www.biography.com/scientist/john-james-audubon
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_James_Audubon
John James Audubon Timeline:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/john-james-audubon-career-timeline/107/
Some Important Books about Audubon and His Art:
(Primary sources of information for some of the content on this website)
(1) Audubon’s Aviary: The Original Watercolors for “The Birds of America", by Roberta J. M. Olson, published by the Skira Rizzoli Publications, Inc and New-York Historical Society, 2012.
(2) John James Audubon / The Making of An American, by Richard Rhodes, Alfred A Knopf, New York, 2004.
(3) Under a Wild Sky / John James Audubon and the Making of the Birds of America, by William Souder, North Point Press, New York, 2004.
(4) Audubon Art Prints / A Collector’s Guide to Every Edition, by Bill Steiner, University of South Carolina press, 2003.
(5) Audubon’s Great National Work / The Royal Octavo Edition of the Birds of America, by Ron Tyler, University of Texas press, Austin, 1993.
(6) A Guide to Audubon’s Birds of America, by Susanne M. Low, William Reese Co & Donald A. Heald, New Haven and New York, 2002.
(7) The Double Elephant Folio / The Story of Audubon’s Birds of America, by Waldemar H. Fries, Zenaida Publishing, Inc., Amherst, MA, 2006.
(8) John James Audubon / Writings & Drawings, by Christoph Irmscher (Editor), The Library of America, 1999.
(9) The Imperial Collection of Audubon Animals / The Quadrupeds of North America. Original Text by John James Audubon, F.R.S., and Rev. John Bachman, D.D., Edited and with new text by Victor H. Cahalane. Bonanza Books, New York, 1967.
(10) The Birds of America: The Bien Chromolithographic Edition, Hard Cover, Facsimile, September 30, 2013, Text by Joel Oppenheimer, W. W. Norton & Company. The first complete reproduction of Bien chromolithographs of Audubon's Birds of America.
(11) Audubon, The Kentucky Years, by L. Clark Keating, The University Press of Kentucky, 1976.
(12) A Summer of Birds / John James Audubon at Oakley House, by Danny Heitman, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 2008.
Some Documentaries about Audubon and his art:
John James Audubon: THE BIRDS OF AMERICA, A National Gallery of Art Presentation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQijoWmzvTo
A Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld5XW9zA_fI
How Audubon’s Birds of America Changed Natural History (by Selby Kiffer, Sotheby's)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_qDRpNwShI
Audubon’s Birds of America, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElD_Qx_lPls
Dr. Roberta Olson, Curator, New-York Historical Society and Professor of Art History Emerita, Wheaton College, delivers a lecture entitled "Rara avis: John James Audubon: Artist, Naturalist, and Early Conservationist." She is also the author of "Audubon’s Aviary: The Original Watercolors for “The Birds of America" (see the Important Books listed above).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY_CStGvhRY
Audubon and the Art of Birds - Curator Tour by Don Luce, Bell Museum of Natural History, University of Minnesota https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIpv4zdr1Jc
The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America. John James Audubon & John Bachman. Peter Harrington, London,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5peJmx2API
Some Major Audubon Historical Sites:
(1) John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove, PA
Mill Grove was the first home of John James Audubon in America. He was 18 years old. He also met his future wife, Lucy Bakewell, in an estate adjoining Mill Grove. Visitors can tour the historic stone farm house where Audubon lived, and view on display one of the original volumes of The Birds of America and The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America.
https://johnjames.audubon.org/node/5266/explore-museum
(2) Audubon Museum and Nature Center, Henderson, KY
In 1810, Audubon and his young family (wife Lucy, and his elder son Victor Gifford born in Louisville in 1809) moved to Henderson, KY (then a frontier village), and lived there for about 9 years. It was a period of happiness but much tragedy too. His second son, John Woodhouse was born in Henderson in 1812 (a daughter, Lucy, born in 1815 died in infancy in 1817. A second daughter, Rose, born in 1819 also died in infancy in 1820). While he was away on a trip, several of his precious drawings that he stored in a wooden storage box were destroyed from infestation by Norway rats. Audubon tried several business ventures to support his young family (lumber/grist mill, General Store etc.) but was unsuccessful. Sadly, Audubon's log cabin house, his lumber/grist mill and Merchandise Store no longer exist; but Site Markers are in place to identify their historic locations. Among the exhibits, the Museum has a collection of Audubon's and Lucy's personal belongings, a rare bound four volume set of the Havell edition of The Birds of America, and bound volumes of the Bien edition of the Birds of America and Imperial Folio edition of the quadrupeds, an original copperplate used in the Havell Edition, and several original Havell edition engravings and Imperil Folio edition stone lithographs on display.
https://friendsofaudubon.org/museum-nature-center/
(3) Oakley Plantation House, St Francisville, LA
Audubon spent about four months at the Oakley Plantation House near St. Francisville, West Feliciana Parish in Louisiana. He painted anywhere between 23 to 32 of the bird images while working there (tutoring Eliza Pirrie, the teenage daughter of Mrs. Lucy Pirrie, the owner of the plantation). Visitors can view the small room on the ground floor where Audubon and his assistant Joseph Mason stayed. The Visitor Center has a display of several original Havell edition prints in an adjacent theater.
https://www.crt.state.la.us/louisiana-state-parks/historic-sites/audubon-state-historic-site/index
(4) Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum, 155 & Broadway, Manhattan, New York
The final resting place for the great naturalist John James Audubon is located in the Trinity Church cemetery, about a couple of blocks from the small estate on the Hudson river bank that he purchased and established in 1841. He called it "Minnie's Land", in honor of his devoted and very supportive wife, Lucy. Sadly, the clapboard house where Audubon and Lucy lived and their estate surrounding it no longer exist, having succumbed to the pressures of settling debts owed by the Audubon family after the death of Audubon, as well as to the intense pressures of subsequent urban development in that area over the years (see the next paragraph). With rapidly declining health and suffering from dementia in his final years, the great naturalist Audubon passed away on January 27, 1851 at the age of 65. His immediately family members were also buried at the same site after they passed away.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6102721/john-james-audubon
For more information about the estate overlooking the Hudson River in northern Manhattan that Audubon purchased in 1841 and about its tragic fate, the reader is directed to the following two excellent resources. They also contain photos of Audubon’s final residence and its neighborhood:
(i) “The Lost John James Audubon House--Riverside Drive near 156th Street”, an excellent and well-researched Blog by author Tom Miller:
https://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-lost-john-james-audubon-house.html
(ii) "THE NEIGHBORHOOD MANHATTAN FORGOT / AUDUBON PARK AND THE FAMILIES WHO SHAPED IT"
By Matthew Spady, Fordham University Press, Published: 2020. ISBN: 9780823289424
https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823289424/the-neighborhood-manhattan-forgot/
New-York Historical Society, Museum and Library:
In 1863, Lucy Bakewell Audubon, who by then already lost her beloved husband John James Audubon and her two sons (Victor Gifford and John Woodhouse) was financially strapped and struggling to support her grand children. The advent of the Civil War in 1860 destroyed the plans for the successful completion of the Bien edition of the Birds of America, and contributed to the financial ruin of the Audubon family, further exasperated by the premature deaths of Audubons' two sons in 1860 (Victor Gifford) and 1862 (John Woodhouse). Out of desperation to support her family and discharge financial debts (including debts incurred for the production of the Bien edition), Lucy Audubon sold all of the original watercolor paintings of her husband to the New-York Historical Society for a paltry sum of $4,000. This meager amount was mainly a reflection of the harsh reality of life during the American Civil War which was raging on all around at that time and made it very hard for the Society to raise funds for the purchase of art. These original watercolors by John James Audubon are priceless and are considered a National Treasure. They can be viewed at the New-York Historical Society Museum Gallery. Also see the book listed above : Audubon’s Aviary: The Original Watercolors for “The Birds of America", by Roberta J. M. Olson.
https://www.nyhistory.org/
National Audubon Society:
In 1886 George Grinnel (a student of Lucy Bakewell Audubon) founded the Audubon Society of New York, the forerunner of the National Audubon Society dedicated to the protection of birds and their habitat. The National Audubon Society currently has 23 state programs, 41 Audubon Nature Centers, and nearly 500 local chapters. The Society published the Abbeville Edition of the Birds of America in 1985 to commemorate the 200 year anniversary of the birth of the great naturalist and artist, as well as the Volair Edition of Audubon's Octavo Birds and Quadrupeds in 1978. More recently, it has collaborated with Gitler &_____ Gallery to create the Audubon Mural Project in New York City to bring attention to climate-threatened birds.
Finally, in our opinion, the National Audubon Society is to be commended for opting to retain Audubon’s name in its title after considerable debate, soul searching, and membership feedback about properly reconciling Audubon’s ownership of a few slaves in the early 19th century within the context of the period he lived in (please see the brief discussion of his slave ownership above) versus his monumental contributions to documenting American birds and quadrupeds, his magnificent and unparalleled art which portrayed them, and his expressed concerns about the loss of wildlife species from the destruction of their habitats.
https://www.audubon.org/
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