John James Audubon (1785-1851)

http://library.lehigh.edu/omeka/files/original/49d8213c42e7af37e89d11f99e7fceba.jpg

Self-portrait. From "Audubon's America" by Donald Culross Peattie.

Audubon has been called artist, ornithologist, naturalist, hunter, and frontiersman. It decidedly took a combination of these skills for him to succeed as he did in producing the greatest bird book of all time. The illegitimate son of a French ship's captain, Jean Jacques Audubon was born on Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) in 1785. Following the death of his mistress shortly thereafter, the senior Audubon returned to Nantes, France with his young son, where he was raised by his wife Anne. A natural explorer, Audubon preferred to meander the French countryside and hone his powers of observation rather than engage in formal education. He started collecting and drawing specimens at an early age.

Fearing that his son would be drafted into Napoleon's army, Jean Audubon made arrangements to send the renamed John James to America, where he would take up residence on a family estate in Mill Grove, Pennsylvania in 1803, living the life of a gentleman and furthering his informal education as a self-taught naturalist and artist.

Audubon married Lucy Bakewell (1787-1874), the daughter of his English Pennsylvania neighbor in 1808. The couple had two sons, Victor Gifford (1809) and John Woodhouse (1812). Audubon tried his hand at various business ventures, including establishing a dry-goods store and teaching dancing in pursuits that took him from Pennsylvania to Kentucky to Louisiana. However, it was his interest in capturing not only birds, but their likenesses that occupied his thoughts. He ultimately determined to identify and paint them all, bringing to life every bird in North America.

Hunting specimens, and then wiring them creatively into lifelike positions, Audubon perfected a means by which he was able to capture images "drawn from nature." He perfected a routine of arranging specimens prior to creating his masterful drawings. Audubon himself did not travel far west to secure specimens, but instead received them from naturalists and explorers.

In 1824, Audubon returned to Philadelphia intending to have prints made from his many paintings of birds. Sadly, he was unsuccessful as the magnitude of the project was so great. Philadelphians were faithful to Alexander Wilson's and perceived his work as a threat to the continued publication of Wilson's Birds. Audubon then returned to Great Britain with the hope of securing a commitment from a publisher. He met with success in Scotland in the form of W. H. Lizars, who created the first ten plates from Audubon's work. Following a strike in this studio, Audubon turned to Robert Havell to finish the production of Birds of America in London.

After Audubon's death in 1851, penniless, his widow Lucy sold not only the family copy of Birds of America, but also his original art. His remaining drawings were sold to the New-York Historical Society, where they are preserved today.

Though not always revered as a scientist, Audubon's many accolades and induction to learned societies of the time are testimony to his contributions to the scientific community. As stated proudly on the title page of Birds of America, Audubon was a "Fellow of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh and of the Linnaean and Zoological Societies of London. He was also a Member of the Natural History Society of Paris, of the Lyceum of New York, of the Philosophical Society and the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, and of the Natural History Society of Boston and of Charleston."

John James Audubon (1785-1851)