Painter and naturalist, born in Les Cayes, Haiti. The illegitimate son of a French sea captain and merchant, Jean Audubon, and a Creole woman, he was taken to France and legally adopted by Audubon and his wife (1794). He began drawing birds as a teenager (but few now accept his claim that he studied under David in Paris). In 1803 he moved to his father's estate near Philadelphia, where he spent his time hunting, experimenting with birds (he is credited with the first ringing of wild birds in America), and drawing the birds he hunted.
After convincing her father that he could support her, he married Lucy Bakewell (1808), but soon he was going bankrupt, operating stores and other business enterprises in Kentucky while he pursued his passions of observing and drawing wildlife. To make his finished paintings, for which he used a mix of pastel, watercolour, tempera and (later) oils, he would shoot or trap birds and other wildlife (or buy dead specimens in the market) and set them in lifelike poses by passing wires through them. He moved to New Orleans (1821), and Lucy was soon providing much of their income by tutoring, while her husband contributed some by doing portraits and teaching art.
Determined to publish his bird paintings in a large format, he was advised to go to Europe to find skilled engravers, and went to Britain (1826) where, in addition to lining up customers, he eventually obtained the help of master engraver Robert Havell, Jr. The great double elephant folio edition of The Birds of America (4 vols, 182738), with hand-coloured engravings, enjoyed immediate success; the text was published separately (5 vols, 18319) as Ornithological Biography.
He returned to America (182930, 18314) to continue his search for every species of bird he could find. He went back to Europe (18349), then settled permanently in the USA. He issued a smaller edition of The Birds of America (18404), and with the naturalist John Bachman worked almost until his death on The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America (3 vols, 184554). Although criticized for certain scientific and artistic failings, Audubon's work still engages people with its dramatic and detailed images of wildlife.
| John James Audubon | |
|---|---|
| John James Audubon | |
| Born |
26 April 1785 Les Cayes, Haiti (then called : Saint Domingue) |
| Died |
27 January 1851 New York |
| Occupation | naturalist, painter, ornithologist |
| Spouse | Lucy Audubon |
John James Audubon (April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was a Franco-American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter.
Biography
Audubon was born in Haiti (then called Saint Domingue), the illegitimate son of Jean Audubon, a French sea captain and slavemaster, and Jeanne Rabin. Since Audubon was born illegitimate, he was at first named Jean Rabine (his mother was called Jeanne Rabine).
His father took him to Nantes,France to be raised by his wife, Anne Moynet. He was formally adopted in March 1789 and named Jean-Jacques Fougere Audubon, which he later americanized. Audubon later claimed that in 1802 he studied drawing with the French painter Jacques-Louis David, but no evidence of such an association has been found.
He caught yellow fever and the sea captain placed him in a boarding house run by Quaker women who nursed him to recovery and taught him the unique Quaker form of English.
He oversaw a family farm near Philadelphia and began the study of natural history by conducting the first bird-banding on the continent;
After years of business success in Pennsylvania and Kentucky, he went bankrupt. This compelled him to pursue his nature study and painting more vigorously and he sailed off down the Mississippi with his gun, paintbox and assistant, intent on finding and painting all the birds of North America.
On his arrival in New Orleans in the spring of 1821, he lived for a time at 706 Barracks Street. (The plantation, located at 11788 Highway 965, between Jackson and St. Francisville, is now Audubon State Historic Site, and guided tours are available almost daily.)
In order to draw or paint the birds, he had to shoot them first, using fine shot to prevent them from being shot to pieces. Audubon once wrote: "I call birds few when I shoot less than one hundred per day".
Since he had no other income, he eked out a living selling portraits on demand, while his wife, Lucy, worked as a tutor to rich plantation families.
Finally, in 1826 he set sail with his portfolio to Liverpool.
Even King George IV was an avid fan of Audubon. While in Edinburgh to seek subscriptions for his book, he gave a demonstration of his method of using wires to prop up birds at professor Robert Jameson's Wernerian Natural History Association with the student Charles Darwin in the audience and also visited the dissecting theatre of the anatomist Robert Knox (not long before Knox became associated with Burke and Hare).
He followed his Birds of America up with a companion work, Ornithological Biographies, life histories of each species written with Scottish ornithologist William MacGillivray.
During that time, Audubon continued making expeditions in North America and bought an estate on the Hudson river, now Audubon Park.
He is buried in the Trinity Churchyard Cemetery at 155th Street and Broadway in Manhattan, New York.
The National Audubon Society was incorporated and named in his honor in 1905.
He started a general store in Louisville, Kentucky, lived in Henderson, Kentucky, and witnessed the 1811-1812 earthquakes.
Today in Henderson, Kentucky, Audubon is remembered by a 692-acre State Park and Museum, which bears his name. The Audubon Museum houses many of Audubon’s original watercolors, oils, engravings and personal memorabilia.
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