David Morrison Reid Henry (1919 – 1977)

A wildlife artist friend of mine once told me he thought D.M. Reid-Henry (the hyphen comes and goes, and he usually signed his name DM Henry or just DMH) had created the best painting ever in the form of a pair of white Gyrfalcons on the cover and inside the two-volume book, Eagles, Hawks and Falcons of the World, by Leslie Brown and Dean Amadon, published by McGraw-Hill in 1968. Maybe, but in that same wonderful book there is a composite painting of the same species, showing different color morphs, to which I’d give that honor.  They simply could not be better illustrated – differently yes, and equally good in other ways, perhaps, but not better.

I first encountered D. M. Reid Henry’s work published in avicultural magazines and journals collected by an adult friend and passed on to me. Here was another artist with an exquisitely precise knowledge of how birds look.  It turned out that both his father, George Morrison Reid Henry, and his older brother, Bruce Charles Reid Henry, were accomplished bird illustrators in their own right, and clearly David lived in a family highly supportive of his endeavors. His paintings were usually gouache watercolour, and he was a master of showing leaves and foliage, at portraying iridescent plumage, and unwavering ornithological accuracy. He showed more detail than Eckleberry but not too much, and had a miniaturist’s touch when it came to showing the scales and other very small features of the feet, eyes and beaks of birds, large and small.  He specialized in Old World tropical species which further endeared his work to me. His birds were all perfect specimens, beautifully feathered, well illuminated and drawn with excellent control of contouring and shading and highlighting.  His birds have form, heft.  He excelled at showing translucence of feathers and understanding the plumage topography of birds, and to this day, many decades after I first gaped in awe and Henry’s awesome talent, I find myself wondering, as I draw and paint, how would D. M. Reid Henry handle this?  But I could never, ever be his equal.