Louis Agassiz Fuertes (1874 – 1927)

At first, I was less impressed by Fuertes’ work then by that of Brooks. As I came to know more and more about birds, that view reversed itself, although in spite of both men working in the same genre (and friends of each other) comparing them is at least partly a matter of comparing apples and oranges.  Both were constrained by the demands of “illustration” when there was a need for pictures depicting birds posed in a way and at an angle that facilitated their identification.  That said, Fuertes was significantly more variable in his approach, often creating very esthetically pleasing compositions showing various bird behaviors.  One can see this in his very earliest work, such as his exquisite pen and ink drawings published in the book, A-Birding on a Bronco, by Florence A. Merriam, published in 1896. You can see for yourself here: (scanned). I particularly draw your attention the wrens on page 32 (to turn pages put your courser in the middle of the page and click) and especially the highly interesting pose and angle the young artist chose for the catbird on page 189.  He did not shy away from the more “field guide” poses required by a public bereft of the amount of illustrative information about North American birds now available.

But along with thousands of kids, my first exposure to Fuertes’ genius was via his illustrations in a book grandly entitled Birds of America, by T. Gilbert Pearson, first published in 1935 and found in every library and in the home of nearly everyone in North America who was in any way interested in wild birds. It featured a set of plates Fuertes had done early in his highly successful career showing all the species then known to occur in New York State, in color. Because the paintings lacked the warmth, the richness and the curving forms of Brooks’ paintings I was less impressed by them than by those of Brooks.  But as I gained more experience through my teens with so many actual birds really looked like, both in the field and as a result of my mother’s bird rescue and rehabilitation work, I realized that Fuertes was simply more accurate.  As well, his paintings in that book were “true” watercolors in that the pigment was translucently applied, using the white of the paper to inform the colors; experience in my own painting also informed me as to the nature of Fuertes’ technical skills.  Later Brooks would convince Fuertes to try a gouache approach, with more opaque colors, plus the use of Chinese white and tinted paper and it worked extremely well, resulting in paintings more esthetically pleasing to my eye, and resulting in some of the best bird paintings in existence.

That is to take nothing away from his early work, especially his “vignettes”.  In the New York State series, I think some of Fuertes’ paintings, such as his Belted Kingfisher and his Broad-winged Hawks, are utter masterpieces both in terms of artistic merit and biological accuracy. Also, when tasked with painting wild mammals, still in the classic watercolor form, Fuertes created some gems when portraying the smaller and middle-sized mammals. Mind you, when he was assigned to paint dog breeds for National Geographic Magazine, his heart was obviously not in it, with very poor results. Similarly, he was paid to produce a batch of illustrations for collector’s cards to be found in boxes of the Church and Stewart Limited baking soda. They are not his best work and one can tell he was not all that enthused by the project, but that said, minus his best work they were still the finest American bird illustrations one could find at that time! 

But in my most formative early years of which I speak I knew nothing of them.  My second exposure to his work came from among the last paintings he did, during an expedition to Ethiopia over the winter of 1926-27.  These were quick studies from freshly shot birds, and some mammals, designed to preserve the colors of the un-feathered portions of the birds, such as beaks, eyes and feet, and far more than that, the all-important facial expression and contours. This was all visual information that was lost when the animals were preserved as museum specimens. He had to work with quick deftness while the specimens were most fresh and yet somehow he managed to imbue each work with artistic merit, an amazing feat. When, as I youngster looking through Jim Ballie’s library in the Royal Ontario Museum, I found a book that featured this art, and I was stunned by the way in which the detail I then so venerated in bird art, was not all that important after all. I am not suggesting it was his “best” work, quite the contrary, but his use of a gouache approach, quickly applied brush technique and command of texture, composition and draftsmanship all came together in a way I had not previously encountered.

The third source of Fuertes’ inspiration to me came from his final set of plates, unfinished at the time of his untimely death, thus completed by Brooks, with additional plates by Roger Tory Peterson, in A Natural History of American Birds of Eastern and Central North America, by Edward Howe Forbush and John Bichard May. I am unclear of the first publishing date but it is given online as 1955.  At any rate by then Fuertes was working the gouache method, and here he has some absolute masterpieces, most especially, in my eyes, among the waterbirds, shorebirds and raptors. 

Fuertes did far more, exploring the use of oil paints in a series of masterpieces.  His field studies derive from many trips before that final one, each producing beautiful soft-part studies, and through my life I’ve sought out and been wonderfully pleased by each new discovery of a reproduction of work by Fuertes.  He painted some non-native species (his exotic pheasants for a book on that family were especially impressive).

He tragically died on August 22, 1927, at age 53, in Unadilla, New York State, when, while driving, he tried to pass a slow-moving wagon so full of hay that the artist’s view was blocked.  He drove over a railway crossing just as a train was oncoming.  In the subsequent crash Fuertes died instantly.  His wife was injured but survived.  In the car also contained the whole set of Fuertes’ paintings from Ethiopia which, miraculously, survived intact. From an early age he was never out of work or demand, but it is still amazing how much he produced in so short of time, and I remain saddened that the world was robbed by what more might have come had he survived a few more decades.