Louis Agassiz Fuertes
Louis Agassiz Fuertes was born in Ithaca, New York in 1874. Though he had no formal training as an artist, he developed an interest in painting birds and wildlife as a teenager. During this time, he spent many hours in the Ithaca Public Library, drawing and painting from a copy of John James Audubon’s Birds of America. He was also deeply influenced by Alexander Wilson’s American Ornithology (also in the library) and used the latter as a reference for coloration of birds he had not painted from life.
Fuertes launched his career as a professional painter of birds at the American Ornithologists’ Union conference in 1896. The president of the organization, a famed ornithologist of his day, Dr. Elliot Coues, described him as having received the mantle of John James Audubon. Coues became an early mentor and the key proponent of Fuertes¹ work as he began his career.
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