Louis Agassiz Fuertes

Louis Agassiz Fuertes (February 7, 1874 – August 22, 1927) was an American ornithologist, illustrator and artist who set the rigorous and current-day standards for ornithological art and naturalist depiction and is considered one of the most prolific American bird artists, second only to his guiding professional predecessor John James Audubon.

Biography

Early life Fuertes was born in Ithaca, New York, and was the son of Puerto Rican astronomer and civil engineer Estevan Fuertes and Mary Stone Perry Fuertes. His father was the founding professor of the School of Civil Engineering at Cornell University, and for many years served as the dean of the college. Estevan named his son after the Swiss-born American naturalist Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz, who had died the year before. Fuertes's mother, born in Troy, New York, was of Dutch ancestry.

Young Louis became interested in birds at a very early age, killing birds with a slingshot and examining them carefully.

As a child, he had been influenced by John James Audubon's The Birds of America. At the age of fourteen, he made his first painting of a live bird, a male red crossbill. He learned to keep careful records of the appearance, habits and voices of birds.

In 1890, he sent a specimen that he collected to the Smithsonian and received stellar praise and glowing comments on its rarity and accuracy and in 1891, at the age of 17, Louis became the youngest member ever named as an Associate Member of the American Ornithologists' Union.

He was encouraged by his father's colleagues at Cornell including Burt G. Wilder and Liberty H. Bailey.

In June 1892, he accompanied his parents to Europe and sketched birds and animals at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris.

In September, he joined the Institute of Keller, a school in Zurich, staying on for a year.

In 1896, Coues invited Fuertes to attend the Ornithological Congress at Cambridge in England.

Career and personal life

After graduating from Cornell in 1897 he became an apprentice to the painter Abbott H. Thayer. In 1898, he made his first expedition, with Thayer and his son Gerald, to Florida. In 1899, Fuertes accompanied E. H. Harriman on his famous exploration of the Alaska coastline, the Harriman Alaska Expedition.

Fuertes later traveled 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 American 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 named it Icterus fuertesi, commonly called Fuertes's oriole after his friend.

In 1904 Fuertes married Margaret F. Sumner and they had a son, Louis Sumner, and a daughter, Mary. and even made a trial recording for a Victor record in 1913.

In 1926–27 he participated in the Field Museum's Abyssinian Expedition led by Wilfred Hudson Osgood. He produced some of his most exquisite bird and mammal watercolors as a result of this trip.

Death Upon his return from Ethiopia, Fuertes visited Frank Chapman at Tannersville, New York. Returning from the meeting, his car was hit by a train at a railroad crossing near Unadilla, New York, and he was killed. A load of hay had concealed the oncoming train. His wife was seriously injured but survived.

Despite the collision, the paintings he carried all survived undamaged. This collection was later purchased from Mrs. Fuertes by C. Suydam Cutting.

Fuertes is buried at Lake View Cemetery in Ithaca, New York.

Memorials and legacy

Fuertes is commemorated by two species. One is a species named by his colleague Frank Chapman as Icterus fuertesi, although it is now considered a subspecies of the orchard oriole. The other, Fuertes's parrot, or Hapalopsittaca fuertesi, was rediscovered in 2002 after 91 years of presumed extinction.

In 1927, the Boy Scouts of America made Fuertes an Honorary Scout, a new category of Scout created that same year. This distinction was given 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.

Apart from mentoring George Miksch Sutton, Fuertes influenced many later wildlife artists including Roger Tory Peterson, Jörg Kühn, Courtenay Brandreth, and Conrad Roland. The Wilson Ornithological Society established the Louis Agassiz Fuertes Award in 1947. Fuertes also painted dozens of mammal portraits for The National Geographic Magazine in 1916 and 1918, and inspired the society to hire an artist of their own, Walter A. Weber.

Many of Fuertes' paintings remain popular with collectors. In particular, a 1924 oil painting, Wild Turkey, sold for $86,250 at a January 2012 auction in New York and his other works command even higher prices to private collectors around the world.

Selected works

Fuertes' earliest commissions included 25 large decorative panels for F. F. Brewster of New Haven, Connecticut. This was followed by some murals at the Flamingo Hotel, of Miami, Florida and some paintings for the New York Zoological Society. He was much sought after later, illustrating books, plates for journals and magazine. Working with impressions from the field and from freshly collected specimens, Fuertes' works are considered some of the most accurate and natural depictions of birds. He had an ability to capture the bird in action and reproduce illustrations from a mental image. Apart from illustrations, he wrote some full length articles including one on falconry in the National Geographic and another on dogs. The cover of the journal Auk published by the American Ornithologists' Union was designed by Fuertes. Some of the books that he illustrated include: A-Birding on a Bronco, by Florence A. Merriam, 1896 (scanned) Citizen Bird by Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues. Macmillan Company, 1896 (1923 reprint) Song Birds and Water Fowl, by H E Parkhurst, 1897 (scanned) Bird Craft, by M. Osgood Wright, 1897 (1900 reprint) The Woodpeckers, by F H Eckstorm, 1901 (scanned) Second Book of Birds, by Olive Thorne Miller (pseudonym of Mrs. Harriet Mann Miller), 1901 (scanned) Birds of the Rockies, by Leander S. Keyser 1902 (scanned) Handbook of Birds of Western North America, by Frank Chapman, 1902 (1904 reprint) Upland Game Birds, by Edwyn Sandys and T S van Dyke, 1902 (scanned) Key to North American Birds by Elliott Coues, 1903 (scanned) Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America, by Frank M. Chapman, 1904 (scanned) Birds of New York by Elon Howard Eaton, 1910 (scanned) Wild Animals of North America by Edward W. Nelson, 1918 (scanned) The Burgess Bird Book for Children, by Thornton W. Burgess, 1919 The Burgess Bird Book For Children Birds of Massachusetts and Other New England States by Edward Howe Forbush, 1925 (1927 edition) Artist and Naturalist in Ethiopia by Wilfred Hudson Osgood. Garden City: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1936 The Bird Life of Texas by Harry Church Oberholser. University of Texas Press, 1974

Gallery