Henrik Grønvold (1858 – 1940)

I have chosen Danish artist Henrik Grønvold to represent a suite of early bird artists whose work was published as lithographs, or otherwise earlier forms of reproduction, and who appealed to me so much because they often portrayed, efficiently if not brilliantly, birds not native to North America or western Europe, thus less familiar, to completely unknown, to me when I was young.  There were others, Hudson, Lear, Gould and still others, and all more or less shared two characteristics.  They were, by and large, accurate in terms of pattern and color, the artists working diligently from actual specimens for sure, but none of them had quite the accuracy of form and posture that came with later artists, named above.  Their work was often very decorative, or informative, or placed the bird in very accurate vegetational or other settings, but while I eagerly sought them out, they did not inspire me or ignite my own passions to draw and paint birds as much as did the artists named above, possibly excluding Audubon. 

And to be sure, many other artists have become known to me and inspired me since those early days, including some whose work existed before I was born, or when I was young, but was little or quite unknown to me during that first decade and a half of my life.  Some I have come to admire, and envy for their skills, and influence me now, and would have done so when I was  younger had I known of them.  And there are numerous artists who are younger than me and more skilled at depicting birds, to be sure.  But the above list is my list of the artists I so admired and emulated.