Louis Agassiz Fuertes
Encyclopedia
Biography
Fuertes was the son of Estevan and Mary Stone Perry Fuertes.He decided to concentrate on painting birds as a career after meeting Elliott Coues
Elliott Coues
Elliott Coues was an American army surgeon, historian, ornithologist and author.Coues was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He graduated at Columbian University, Washington, D.C., in 1861, and at the Medical school of that institution in 1863...
in 1894 while on a trip to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
with the Cornell University Glee Club
Cornell University Glee Club
The Cornell University Glee Club is the oldest student organization at Cornell University, having been organized shortly after the first students arrived on campus in 1868. The CUGC is a sixty-member chorus for male voices, with repertoire including classical, folk, 20th century music, and...
. 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. He graduated from Cornell in 1897.
In 1899, he accompanied E. H. Harriman
E. H. Harriman
Edward Henry Harriman was an American railroad executive.-Early years:Harriman was born in Hempstead, New York, the son of Orlando Harriman, an Episcopal clergyman, and Cornelia Neilson...
on his famous exploration of the Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
coastline, the Harriman Alaska Expedition
Harriman Alaska Expedition
In 1899, wealthy railroad magnate Edward Harriman arranged for a maritime expedition to Alaska. Harriman brought with him an elite community of scientists, artists, photographers, and naturalists to explore and document the Alaskan coast...
. Following this, Fuertes would travel across much of the United States and to many countries in pursuit of birds, including the Bahamas, Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
, and Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
. Fuertes collaborated with Frank Chapman
Frank Chapman
Frank Michler Chapman was a U.S. ornithologist and pioneering writer of field guides.Chapman was born in West Englewood, New Jersey and attended Englewood Academy. He joined the staff of the American Museum of Natural History in 1888 as assistant to Joel Asaph Allen...
, curator of the American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
, 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, Icterus fuertesi, commonly called Fuerte’s Oriole
Orchard Oriole
The Orchard Oriole, Icterus spurius, is the smallest North American species of icterid blackbird. The subspecies of the Caribbean coast of Mexico, I. s. fuertesi, is sometimes considered a separate species, the Ochre Oriole....
.
Fuertes lectured on ornithology at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
from 1923, and the libraries there hold extensive collections of his artwork and personal papers. In 1926-27 he participated in the Chicago Field Museum/Daily News Abyssinian (Ethiopia) Expedition led by Wilfred Hudson Osgood
Wilfred Hudson Osgood
Wilfred Hudson Osgood was an American zoologist.Osgood was working as a biologist in the United States Department of Agriculture from 1897 to 1909. Then he moved to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, where he was assistant curator of mammalogy and ornithology from 1909 to 1921, and...
. He would produce some of his most exquisite bird and mammal watercolors as a result of this trip. He was killed 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
George Miksch Sutton
George Miksch Sutton was an American ornithologist and bird artist. He published numerous technical papers in ornithology as well as more popular works illustrated with his own art. His early artistic work was inspired and tutored by Louis Agassiz Fuertes...
, whom he mentored, Roger Tory Peterson
Roger Tory Peterson
Roger Tory Peterson , was an American naturalist, ornithologist, artist, and educator, and held to be one of the founding inspirations for the 20th century environmental movement.-Background:...
, and Jörg Kühn
Jörg Kühn
Jörg Kühn was a Swiss artist, naturalist and scientific illustrator who specialized in animal and bird paintings and drawings. He was also a children's book illustrator...
.
Works
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
. He illustrated more than 60 books and contributed hundreds of works for magazine articles. The following are some noted books published during and after his lifetime.
- Birding on a Broncho, 1896
- Citizen Bird by Mabel Osgood WrightMabel Osgood WrightMabel Osgood Wright was an American author, born in New York City. In 1884 she was married to James Osborne Wright, an Englishman. She became president of the Audubon Society of the State of Connecticut on its organization in 1898...
and Elliot Coues. Macmillan Company, 1896 (illustrations from Citizen Bird). - Song Birds and Water Fowl, 1897
- Bird Craft, 1897
- The Woodpeckers, 1901
- Second Book of Birds, 1901
- Birds of the Rockies, 1902
- Handbook of Birds of Western North America, 1902
- Upland Game Birds, 1902
- Key to North American Birds by Elliot Coues. Estes & Lauriat, 1903 (illustrations from Key to North American Birds).
- Report of the New York State Game, Forest and Fish Commission, 1903
- Waterfowl, 1903
- Birds of New York by Elon Howard Eaton. University of the State of New York, 1910 (illustrations from Birds of New York).
- Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America, 1912
- 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.
- Artist and Naturalist in Ethiopia by Wilfred Hudson OsgoodWilfred Hudson OsgoodWilfred Hudson Osgood was an American zoologist.Osgood was working as a biologist in the United States Department of Agriculture from 1897 to 1909. Then he moved to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, where he was assistant curator of mammalogy and ornithology from 1909 to 1921, and...
. Garden City: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1936. Fuertes painted 16 color plates for this book. It records the 1926–27 Chicago Field MuseumField Museum of Natural HistoryThe Field Museum of Natural History is located in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It sits on Lake Shore Drive next to Lake Michigan, part of a scenic complex known as the Museum Campus Chicago...
/Daily NewsChicago Daily NewsThe Chicago Daily News was an afternoon daily newspaper published between 1876 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois.-History:The Daily News was founded by Melville E. Stone, Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty in 1875 and began publishing early the next year...
Ethiopian Expedition. Fuertes died only weeks after returning from the trip. (Most illustrations from the expedition were published as Album of Abyssinian Birds and Mammals.) - The Bird Life of Texas by Harry Church OberholserHarry Church OberholserHarry Church Oberholser was an American ornithologist.Oberholser worked for the United States Bureau of Biological Survey from 1895 to 1941, first as an ornithologist, later as a biologist, and finally as an editor. He was the author of a number of books and articles...
. University of Texas Press, 1974.
Honors
In 1927, the Boy Scouts of AmericaBoy Scouts of America
The Boy Scouts of America is one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with over 4.5 million youth members in its age-related divisions...
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
Roy Chapman Andrews
Roy Chapman Andrews was an American explorer, adventurer and naturalist who became the director of the American Museum of Natural History. He is primarily known for leading a series of expeditions through the fragmented China of the early 20th century into the Gobi Desert and Mongolia...
; Robert Bartlett; Frederick Russell Burnham
Frederick Russell Burnham
Frederick Russell Burnham, DSO was an American scout and world traveling adventurer known for his service to the British Army in colonial Africa and for teaching woodcraft to Robert Baden-Powell, thus becoming one of the inspirations for the founding of the international Scouting Movement.Burnham...
; Richard E. Byrd; George Kruck Cherrie
George Kruck Cherrie
George Kruck Cherrie was an American naturalist and explorer.Cherrie was born in Iowa. He took part in about forty expeditions, mostly to Central and South America, including Theodore Roosevelt's South American Expedition of 1913–1914, when Cherrie was collecting specimens for the American Museum...
; James L. Clark; Merian C. Cooper
Merian C. Cooper
Merian Caldwell Cooper was an American aviator, United States Air Force and Polish Air Force officer, adventurer, screenwriter, and film director and producer. His most famous film was the 1933 movie King Kong.-Early life:...
; Lincoln Ellsworth
Lincoln Ellsworth
Lincoln Ellsworth was an arctic explorer from the United States.-Birth:He was born on May 12, 1880 to James Ellsworth and Eva Frances Butler in Chicago, Illinois...
; George Bird Grinnell
George Bird Grinnell
George Bird Grinnell was an American anthropologist, historian, naturalist, and writer. Grinnell was born in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in 1870 and a Ph.D. in 1880. Originally specializing in zoology, he became a prominent early conservationist and student...
; Charles A. Lindbergh; Donald Baxter MacMillan; Clifford H. Pope; George Palmer Putnam
George Palmer Putnam
George Palmer Putnam was an important American book publisher.-Biography:Putnam was born in Brunswick, Maine. On moving to New York City, Putnam was given his first job by Jonathan Leavitt, who subsequently published Putnam's first book...
; Kermit Roosevelt
Kermit Roosevelt
Kermit Roosevelt I MC was a son of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. He was an explorer on two continents with his father, a graduate of Harvard University, a soldier serving in two world wars, with both the British and U.S. Armies, a businessman, and a writer...
; Carl Rungius; Stewart Edward White
Stewart Edward White
Stewart Edward White was an American author.-Biography:Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan he attended Grand Rapids High School, and earned degrees from University of Michigan ....
; Orville Wright.
External links
- Cornell University--has links to material on Harriman Expedition, many digitized images of art
- Abyssinian Birds and Mammals: Painted from life by Louis Agassiz Fuertes (1930) Online PDF edition
- Louis A. Fuertes and the Zoological Art of the 1926–1927 Abyssinian Expedition of The Field Museum of Natural History by Paul Johnsgard (2008)