14
14
0
On April 26, 1785, John James
Audubon, American bird watcher and artist (The Birds of America), born in Les Cayes, Haiti (d. 1851).
From the article:
"John James Audubon | Audubon
The American Woodsman: Our Namesake and Inspiration
John James Audubon. Painting: George P. A. Healy; Museum of Science, Boston
You can browse and download the full set of John James Audubon's landmark watercolor prints here.
John James Audubon (1785-1851) was not the first person to attempt to paint and describe all the birds of America (Alexander Wilson has that distinction), but for half a century he was the young country’s dominant wildlife artist. His seminal Birds of America, a collection of 435 life-size prints, quickly eclipsed Wilson’s work and is still a standard against which 20th and 21st century bird artists, such as Roger Tory Peterson and David Sibley, are measured.
Although Audubon had no role in the organization that bears his name, there is a connection: George Bird Grinnell, one of the founders of the early Audubon Society in the late 1800s, was tutored by Lucy Audubon, John James’s widow. Knowing Audubon’s reputation, Grinnell chose his name as the inspiration for the organization’s earliest work to protect birds and their habitats. Today, the name Audubon remains synonymous with birds and bird conservation all over the world.
Audubon was born in Saint Domingue (now Haiti), the illegitimate son of a French sea captain and plantation owner and his French mistress. Early on, he was raised by his stepmother, Mrs. Audubon, in Nantes, France, and took a lively interest in birds, nature, drawing, and music. In 1803, at the age of 18, he was sent to America, in part to escape conscription into the Emperor Napoleon’s army. He lived on the family-owned estate at Mill Grove, near Philadelphia, where he hunted, studied, and drew birds, and met his wife, Lucy Bakewell. While there, he conducted the first known bird-banding experiment in North America, tying strings around the legs of Eastern Phoebes; he learned that the birds returned to the very same nesting sites each year.
Audubon spent more than a decade as a businessman, eventually traveling down the Ohio River to western Kentucky—then the frontier—and setting up a dry-goods store in Henderson. He continued to draw birds as a hobby, amassing an impressive portfolio. While in Kentucky, Lucy gave birth to two sons, Victor Gifford and John Woodhouse, as well as a daughter who died in infancy. Audubon was quite successful in business for a while, but hard times hit, and in 1819 he was briefly jailed for bankruptcy.
With no other prospects, Audubon set off on his epic quest to depict America’s avifauna, with nothing but his gun, artist’s materials, and a young assistant. Floating down the Mississippi, he lived a rugged hand-to-mouth existence in the South while Lucy earned money as a tutor to wealthy plantation families. In 1826, he sailed with his partly finished collection to England. The American Woodsman was literally an overnight success. His life-size, highly dramatic bird portraits, along with his embellished descriptions of wilderness life, hit just the right note at the height of the Continent’s Romantic era. Audubon found a printer for the Birds of America, first in Edinburgh, then London, and later collaborated with the Scottish ornithologist William MacGillivray on the Ornithological Biographies—life histories of each of the species in the work.
The last print was issued in 1838, by which time Audubon had achieved fame and a modest degree of comfort, traveled the country several more times in search of birds, and settled in New York City. He made one more trip out West in 1843, the basis for his final work of mammals, the Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, which was largely completed by his sons and the text of which was written by his long-time friend, the Lutheran pastor John Bachman (whose daughters married Audubon’s sons). Audubon spent his last years in senility and died at age 65. He is buried in the Trinity Cemetery at 155th Street and Broadway in New York City.
Audubon’s story is one of triumph over adversity; his accomplishment is destined for the ages. He encapsulates the spirit of young America, when the wilderness was limitless and beguiling. He was a person of legendary strength and endurance, as well as a keen observer of birds and nature. Like his peers, he was an avid hunter, and he also had a deep appreciation and concern for conservation; in his later writings he sounded the alarm about destruction of birds and habitats. It is fitting that today we carry his name and legacy into the future."
Audubon, American bird watcher and artist (The Birds of America), born in Les Cayes, Haiti (d. 1851).
From the article:
"John James Audubon | Audubon
The American Woodsman: Our Namesake and Inspiration
John James Audubon. Painting: George P. A. Healy; Museum of Science, Boston
You can browse and download the full set of John James Audubon's landmark watercolor prints here.
John James Audubon (1785-1851) was not the first person to attempt to paint and describe all the birds of America (Alexander Wilson has that distinction), but for half a century he was the young country’s dominant wildlife artist. His seminal Birds of America, a collection of 435 life-size prints, quickly eclipsed Wilson’s work and is still a standard against which 20th and 21st century bird artists, such as Roger Tory Peterson and David Sibley, are measured.
Although Audubon had no role in the organization that bears his name, there is a connection: George Bird Grinnell, one of the founders of the early Audubon Society in the late 1800s, was tutored by Lucy Audubon, John James’s widow. Knowing Audubon’s reputation, Grinnell chose his name as the inspiration for the organization’s earliest work to protect birds and their habitats. Today, the name Audubon remains synonymous with birds and bird conservation all over the world.
Audubon was born in Saint Domingue (now Haiti), the illegitimate son of a French sea captain and plantation owner and his French mistress. Early on, he was raised by his stepmother, Mrs. Audubon, in Nantes, France, and took a lively interest in birds, nature, drawing, and music. In 1803, at the age of 18, he was sent to America, in part to escape conscription into the Emperor Napoleon’s army. He lived on the family-owned estate at Mill Grove, near Philadelphia, where he hunted, studied, and drew birds, and met his wife, Lucy Bakewell. While there, he conducted the first known bird-banding experiment in North America, tying strings around the legs of Eastern Phoebes; he learned that the birds returned to the very same nesting sites each year.
Audubon spent more than a decade as a businessman, eventually traveling down the Ohio River to western Kentucky—then the frontier—and setting up a dry-goods store in Henderson. He continued to draw birds as a hobby, amassing an impressive portfolio. While in Kentucky, Lucy gave birth to two sons, Victor Gifford and John Woodhouse, as well as a daughter who died in infancy. Audubon was quite successful in business for a while, but hard times hit, and in 1819 he was briefly jailed for bankruptcy.
With no other prospects, Audubon set off on his epic quest to depict America’s avifauna, with nothing but his gun, artist’s materials, and a young assistant. Floating down the Mississippi, he lived a rugged hand-to-mouth existence in the South while Lucy earned money as a tutor to wealthy plantation families. In 1826, he sailed with his partly finished collection to England. The American Woodsman was literally an overnight success. His life-size, highly dramatic bird portraits, along with his embellished descriptions of wilderness life, hit just the right note at the height of the Continent’s Romantic era. Audubon found a printer for the Birds of America, first in Edinburgh, then London, and later collaborated with the Scottish ornithologist William MacGillivray on the Ornithological Biographies—life histories of each of the species in the work.
The last print was issued in 1838, by which time Audubon had achieved fame and a modest degree of comfort, traveled the country several more times in search of birds, and settled in New York City. He made one more trip out West in 1843, the basis for his final work of mammals, the Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, which was largely completed by his sons and the text of which was written by his long-time friend, the Lutheran pastor John Bachman (whose daughters married Audubon’s sons). Audubon spent his last years in senility and died at age 65. He is buried in the Trinity Cemetery at 155th Street and Broadway in New York City.
Audubon’s story is one of triumph over adversity; his accomplishment is destined for the ages. He encapsulates the spirit of young America, when the wilderness was limitless and beguiling. He was a person of legendary strength and endurance, as well as a keen observer of birds and nature. Like his peers, he was an avid hunter, and he also had a deep appreciation and concern for conservation; in his later writings he sounded the alarm about destruction of birds and habitats. It is fitting that today we carry his name and legacy into the future."
John James Audubon
Posted from audubon.org
World History
Military History
Birding
Outdoors
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 5
8
8
0
John James Audubon: Life-Sized and Larger than Life
Enjoy this 90-minute lecture by Ben Weiss, Leonard A. Lauder Curator of Visual Culture, as he looks at Audubon as an artist, an adventurer, and a symbol of t...
Thank you, my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that April 26 is the anniversary of the birth of American bird watcher and artist John James Audubon who born in Les Cayes, Haiti.
John James Audubon: Life-Sized and Larger than Life
"Enjoy this 90-minute lecture by Ben Weiss, Leonard A. Lauder Curator of Visual Culture, as he looks at Audubon as an artist, an adventurer, and a symbol of the nation and nature he strove to capture with pen and brush."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m052VV18wiM
Images:
1. 1840 John James Audubon, Mississippi Kite, Original Print from the First Edition of 'Birds of America' 30 x 24.
2. 1840 John James Audubon, Sharp-Shinned Hawk, Original Print from the First Edition of 'Birds of America' 23.5 x 18.5.
3. 1840 John James Audubon, Prairie Warblers, Original print from the First Edition of 'Birds of America' c. 1840, 25 x 18
4. 1843 John James Audubon, Black Winged Hawk, Original Print from 2nd Edition of 'Birds of America' 32 x 23jpg.jpg
Biography from medicinemangallery.com/john-james-audubon-biography
"John James Audubon (1785 - 1851) Biography
John James Audubon (1785 - 1851)
John James Audubon was the son of a French sea captain and a chambermaid who died a few months after his birth on April 26, 1785 in Les Cayes, Saint-Domingue, West Indies (now Haiti). His father took him to Nantes, France with a step sister and legally adopted both in 1794. Audobon's wife raised the children as if they were her own and allowed them to spend many happy hours in nature exploring. Audubon studied art in Paris for six months at the studio of Jacques Louis David. At the age of eleven John was enrolled in the Naval Academy at Rochefort-sue-Mer where he stayed for a few years but was eventually forced to leave because of his poor academic standing. He was raised with all the privileges and economic advantages of a gentleman, but seemed only interested in fishing, hunting and collecting bird nests and eggs. At fifteen he was baptized Jean Jacques Fougere Audubon, a name he would later Americanize to John James Audubon.
In 1803, fearing his son's conscription into Napoleon Bonaparte's army, John's father sent him to manage the family's farm at Mill Grove outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He had hoped his son would operate the lead mining and smelting enterprise he had started on the farm. But Audubon was not interested in managing the family farm and instead wandered the landscape hunting and collecting bird specimens. He began to thread wires through the birds he had shot to pose them so he would get lifelike drawings of the bird as if it was in the wild. It was also during this time he began his courtship with 17-year-old Lucy Green Bakewell who lived on a nearby farm. Their lifelong exchange of correspondence begins during this five-year courtship. Her unwavering support was one of the most important elements of John's success.
From 1805 on Audubon tried many different business opportunities in very many cities around the Western US, all of them ending in failure. He married Lucy in 1808 and she supported the family through teaching and taking governess positions in wealthy homes. John was jailed briefly for bankruptcy in 1819. During all of his disastrous business dealings he continued to spend most of his time hunting birds and drawing detailed images of each one. He was inspired by meeting Scottish ornithologist, Alexander Wilson and seeing his drawings. This began a long and arduous journey to find a publisher for the drawings of life-sized portraits of 1,065 individual birds which he titled "The Birds of America." Most of his work was done in watercolor, but starting in about 1822 learned how to paint with oils. He mostly did portrait oil painting to earn some money and to paint for his private collection and continued with watercolor for his birds.
In 1824 he had an exhibition of his bird drawings at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, but still failed to find a publisher. The same year he was elected to the membership of The Lyceum of Natural History. Two of his papers were published in annals. In 1826 Audubon's fortune changed dramatically. He left his wife and two boys in Louisiana and left for England aboard a schooner loaded with cotton. He approached Lord William Rathbone with a letter of introduction and was granted an exhibition of his drawings. He also presented the work in Scotland and to Sir Walter Scott in London. He was very well received and became in instant celebrity. He met master engraver and printer William H. Lizars in Edinburgh and made arrangements for him to make the plates for engraving. The plates are printed on Double Elephant Whatman paper. On November 28, 1826 the first proof plate, The Wild Turkey Cock is printed.
Audubon is made an Honorary Member of the Wernerian Society, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Fellow of the Linnean Society. The eminent Paris scientist, Georges Cuvier, declared the paintings to be the "greatest monument ever erected by art to nature."
King George IV was a fan of "The American Woodsman." In 1829 Audubon was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. This same year he returned to America to sell subscriptions to finance the publication and to gather more specimens to include in The Birds of America. When the Scottish printers went on strike, Robert Havell, Jr. a London engraver, stepped in to engrave the hand-colored copper plates for the remaining drawings and paintings which started an eleven-year collaboration between the two artists. The finished product was a four-volume set weighing fifty pounds. It sold for $1,000, and less than 200 of the bound copies were printed. The accompanying text named Ornithological Biography was prepared in collaboration with William MacGillivray, a Scottish naturalist. The finished Birds of America was 435 life-sized elephant folio engravings, of which about 100 sets were sold in England and about seventy-five in America. He started a companion work about animals with his friend John Bachman called The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America. This was eventually finished and published by his two sons after his death.
Audubon purchased "Minnie's Land" in 1842. It was an estate on the Hudson River named after his wife who's pet name was Minnie. This land is now 157th St. in Manhattan. He borrows Captain William Clark's original copy of his 1803 Expedition Journal of the Corps of Discovery to make an expedition to Missouri to collect more bird specimens. Audubon then used material from this trip to publish a smaller octavo edition by lithographer J.T. Bowen in 1843 which gave him more exposure to the public. In 1844 the seventh and final volume of the Royal Octavo Birds of America was completed. The next few years showed a dramatic decrease in Audubon's health and in 1847 he suffered a stroke which rendered him unable to draw and paint. He died in January of 1851 at Minnie's Land.
In the following years, Lucy desperately tried to survive by selling her personal copy of Birds of America as well as selling the original copper plates to Phelps Dodge Corporation to be melted into scrap metal. Approximately 80 of the original 435 copper plates were saved from meltdown. Interest in Audubon's work continues to escalate. In 2004 a single print of the American Flamingo brought $197,000 at auction. Both the Audubon and the Smithsonian Magazines published cover stories on him in 2004. In 2005 the New York Historical Society exhibited fifty of the original watercolors in their New York gallery. The Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming held an exhibition in 2001 of prints from the folio quadrupeds.
The Audubon Society was incorporated in 1905 and named in his honor by George Bird Grinnell who had been tutored by Lucy Audubon. He wanted to inspire people to protect birds and their habitats. Included in the vast number of museum collections of Audubon's work is the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Louvre Museum, Paris; Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; the Detroit Institue of Arts; John James Audubon at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh and the Arizona State University Art Museum, Tucson.
Bibliography:
1. National Audubon Society
2. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.
3. John James Audubon by John Burroughs
4. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York"
FYI LTC Wayne Brandon LTC (Join to see) MSgt Robert C Aldi CPT Scott Sharon CMSgt (Join to see) SMSgt Tom Burns SSG Donald H "Don" Bates SSG Jeffrey Leake Sgt (Join to see) SGT Randal Groover SGT Rick Colburn SPC Mike Lake PO3 William Hetrick PO3 Lynn Spalding SPC Mark Huddleston Rhonda Hanson SPC Jordan Sutich PO3 Craig Phillips
John James Audubon: Life-Sized and Larger than Life
"Enjoy this 90-minute lecture by Ben Weiss, Leonard A. Lauder Curator of Visual Culture, as he looks at Audubon as an artist, an adventurer, and a symbol of the nation and nature he strove to capture with pen and brush."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m052VV18wiM
Images:
1. 1840 John James Audubon, Mississippi Kite, Original Print from the First Edition of 'Birds of America' 30 x 24.
2. 1840 John James Audubon, Sharp-Shinned Hawk, Original Print from the First Edition of 'Birds of America' 23.5 x 18.5.
3. 1840 John James Audubon, Prairie Warblers, Original print from the First Edition of 'Birds of America' c. 1840, 25 x 18
4. 1843 John James Audubon, Black Winged Hawk, Original Print from 2nd Edition of 'Birds of America' 32 x 23jpg.jpg
Biography from medicinemangallery.com/john-james-audubon-biography
"John James Audubon (1785 - 1851) Biography
John James Audubon (1785 - 1851)
John James Audubon was the son of a French sea captain and a chambermaid who died a few months after his birth on April 26, 1785 in Les Cayes, Saint-Domingue, West Indies (now Haiti). His father took him to Nantes, France with a step sister and legally adopted both in 1794. Audobon's wife raised the children as if they were her own and allowed them to spend many happy hours in nature exploring. Audubon studied art in Paris for six months at the studio of Jacques Louis David. At the age of eleven John was enrolled in the Naval Academy at Rochefort-sue-Mer where he stayed for a few years but was eventually forced to leave because of his poor academic standing. He was raised with all the privileges and economic advantages of a gentleman, but seemed only interested in fishing, hunting and collecting bird nests and eggs. At fifteen he was baptized Jean Jacques Fougere Audubon, a name he would later Americanize to John James Audubon.
In 1803, fearing his son's conscription into Napoleon Bonaparte's army, John's father sent him to manage the family's farm at Mill Grove outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He had hoped his son would operate the lead mining and smelting enterprise he had started on the farm. But Audubon was not interested in managing the family farm and instead wandered the landscape hunting and collecting bird specimens. He began to thread wires through the birds he had shot to pose them so he would get lifelike drawings of the bird as if it was in the wild. It was also during this time he began his courtship with 17-year-old Lucy Green Bakewell who lived on a nearby farm. Their lifelong exchange of correspondence begins during this five-year courtship. Her unwavering support was one of the most important elements of John's success.
From 1805 on Audubon tried many different business opportunities in very many cities around the Western US, all of them ending in failure. He married Lucy in 1808 and she supported the family through teaching and taking governess positions in wealthy homes. John was jailed briefly for bankruptcy in 1819. During all of his disastrous business dealings he continued to spend most of his time hunting birds and drawing detailed images of each one. He was inspired by meeting Scottish ornithologist, Alexander Wilson and seeing his drawings. This began a long and arduous journey to find a publisher for the drawings of life-sized portraits of 1,065 individual birds which he titled "The Birds of America." Most of his work was done in watercolor, but starting in about 1822 learned how to paint with oils. He mostly did portrait oil painting to earn some money and to paint for his private collection and continued with watercolor for his birds.
In 1824 he had an exhibition of his bird drawings at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, but still failed to find a publisher. The same year he was elected to the membership of The Lyceum of Natural History. Two of his papers were published in annals. In 1826 Audubon's fortune changed dramatically. He left his wife and two boys in Louisiana and left for England aboard a schooner loaded with cotton. He approached Lord William Rathbone with a letter of introduction and was granted an exhibition of his drawings. He also presented the work in Scotland and to Sir Walter Scott in London. He was very well received and became in instant celebrity. He met master engraver and printer William H. Lizars in Edinburgh and made arrangements for him to make the plates for engraving. The plates are printed on Double Elephant Whatman paper. On November 28, 1826 the first proof plate, The Wild Turkey Cock is printed.
Audubon is made an Honorary Member of the Wernerian Society, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Fellow of the Linnean Society. The eminent Paris scientist, Georges Cuvier, declared the paintings to be the "greatest monument ever erected by art to nature."
King George IV was a fan of "The American Woodsman." In 1829 Audubon was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. This same year he returned to America to sell subscriptions to finance the publication and to gather more specimens to include in The Birds of America. When the Scottish printers went on strike, Robert Havell, Jr. a London engraver, stepped in to engrave the hand-colored copper plates for the remaining drawings and paintings which started an eleven-year collaboration between the two artists. The finished product was a four-volume set weighing fifty pounds. It sold for $1,000, and less than 200 of the bound copies were printed. The accompanying text named Ornithological Biography was prepared in collaboration with William MacGillivray, a Scottish naturalist. The finished Birds of America was 435 life-sized elephant folio engravings, of which about 100 sets were sold in England and about seventy-five in America. He started a companion work about animals with his friend John Bachman called The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America. This was eventually finished and published by his two sons after his death.
Audubon purchased "Minnie's Land" in 1842. It was an estate on the Hudson River named after his wife who's pet name was Minnie. This land is now 157th St. in Manhattan. He borrows Captain William Clark's original copy of his 1803 Expedition Journal of the Corps of Discovery to make an expedition to Missouri to collect more bird specimens. Audubon then used material from this trip to publish a smaller octavo edition by lithographer J.T. Bowen in 1843 which gave him more exposure to the public. In 1844 the seventh and final volume of the Royal Octavo Birds of America was completed. The next few years showed a dramatic decrease in Audubon's health and in 1847 he suffered a stroke which rendered him unable to draw and paint. He died in January of 1851 at Minnie's Land.
In the following years, Lucy desperately tried to survive by selling her personal copy of Birds of America as well as selling the original copper plates to Phelps Dodge Corporation to be melted into scrap metal. Approximately 80 of the original 435 copper plates were saved from meltdown. Interest in Audubon's work continues to escalate. In 2004 a single print of the American Flamingo brought $197,000 at auction. Both the Audubon and the Smithsonian Magazines published cover stories on him in 2004. In 2005 the New York Historical Society exhibited fifty of the original watercolors in their New York gallery. The Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming held an exhibition in 2001 of prints from the folio quadrupeds.
The Audubon Society was incorporated in 1905 and named in his honor by George Bird Grinnell who had been tutored by Lucy Audubon. He wanted to inspire people to protect birds and their habitats. Included in the vast number of museum collections of Audubon's work is the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Louvre Museum, Paris; Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; the Detroit Institue of Arts; John James Audubon at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh and the Arizona State University Art Museum, Tucson.
Bibliography:
1. National Audubon Society
2. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.
3. John James Audubon by John Burroughs
4. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York"
FYI LTC Wayne Brandon LTC (Join to see) MSgt Robert C Aldi CPT Scott Sharon CMSgt (Join to see) SMSgt Tom Burns SSG Donald H "Don" Bates SSG Jeffrey Leake Sgt (Join to see) SGT Randal Groover SGT Rick Colburn SPC Mike Lake PO3 William Hetrick PO3 Lynn Spalding SPC Mark Huddleston Rhonda Hanson SPC Jordan Sutich PO3 Craig Phillips
(8)
(0)
6
6
0
6
6
0
Read This Next
Continue with Facebook 
Continue with Google