Louis Agassiz Fuertes

Born in 1874 in Ithaca, New York, Louis Agassiz Fuertes demonstrated a noticeable talent for art and an interest in birds from a young age. Inspired by the works of Alexander Wilson and John James Audubon, who Fuertes describes as having “the most potent influence that was ever exerted upon my youthful longing to do justice to the singular beauty of birds,” Fuertes enjoyed a prolific career as a bird portraitist, lecturer of ornithology at Cornell University, and an early supporter of the budding conservationist movement. Today he is recognized as one of the greatest artists-naturalists of the 20th century and his artwork can be found in major institutional and private collections worldwide.