Луи Агесси Фуэртэс: Американский художник-орнитолог

United States ornithological artist (1874–1927)

Louis Agassiz Fuertes (February 7, 1874 – August 22, 1927) was an American ornithologist, illustrator and artist who set the rigorous and current day standards for ornithological art and naturalist depiction and is considered one of the most prolific American bird artists, second only to his guiding professional predecessor John James Audubon.

Fuertes was born in Ithaca, New York, and was the son of Puerto Rican astronomer and civil engineer Estevan Fuertes and Mary Stone Perry Fuertes. His father was the founding professor of the School of Civil Engineering at Cornell University, and for many years served as the dean of the college. Estevan named his son after the Swiss born American naturalist Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz, who had died the year before. Fuertes's mother, born in Troy, New York, was of Dutch ancestry. Young Louis became interested in birds at a very early age, killing birds with a slingshot and examining them carefully. As a child, he had been influenced by John James Audubon's The Birds of America. At the age of fourteen, he made his first painting of a live bird, a male red crossbill. He learned to keep careful records of the appearance, habits and voices of birds. In 1890, he sent a specimen that he collected to the Smithsonian and received stellar praise and glowing comments on its rarity and accuracy and in 1891, at the age of 17, Louis became the youngest member ever named as an Associate Member of the American Ornithologists' Union. He was encouraged by his father's colleagues at Cornell including Burt G. Wilder and Liberty H. Bailey. In June 1892, he accompanied his parents to Europe and sketched birds and animals at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. In September, he joined the Institute of Keller, a school in Zurich, staying on for a year. In 1896, Coues invited Fuertes to attend the Ornithological Congress at Cambridge in England.

After graduating from Cornell in 1897 he became an apprentice to the painter Abbott H. Thayer. In 1898, he made his first expedition, with Thayer and his son Gerald, to Florida. In 1899, Fuertes accompanied E. H. Harriman on his famous exploration of the Alaska coastline, the Harriman Alaska Expedition. Fuertes later traveled across much of the United States and to many countries in pursuit of birds, including the Bahamas, Jamaica, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, and Ethiopia. Fuertes collaborated with Frank Chapman, curator of the American Museum of Natural History, on many assignments including field research, background dioramas at the museum, and book illustrations. While on a collecting expedition with Chapman in Mexico, Fuertes discovered a species of oriole. Chapman named it Icterus fuertesi, commonly called Fuertes's oriole after his friend. In 1904 Fuertes married Margaret F. Sumner and they had a son, Louis Sumner, and a daughter, Mary. and even made a trial recording for a Victor record in 1913. In 1926–27 he participated in the Field Museum's Abyssinian Expedition led by Wilfred Hudson Osgood. He produced some of his most exquisite bird and mammal watercolors as a result of this trip.

Upon his return from Ethiopia, Fuertes visited Frank Chapman at Tannersville, New York. Returning from the meeting, his car was hit by a train at a railroad crossing near Unadilla, New York, and he was killed. A load of hay had concealed the oncoming train. His wife was seriously injured but survived. By a twist of fate, the paintings he carried all survived undamaged. This extraordinary and rare collection was later purchased from Mrs. Fuertes by C. Suydam Cutting. Fuertes is buried at Lake View Cemetery in Ithaca, New York.

Fuertes is commemorated by two species. One is a species named by his colleague Frank Chapman as Icterus fuertesi, although it is now considered a subspecies of the orchard oriole. The other, Fuertes's parrot, or Hapalopsittaca fuertesi, was rediscovered in 2002 after 91 years of presumed extinction. In 1927, the Boy Scouts of America made Fuertes an Honorary Scout, a new category of Scout created that same year. This distinction was given to "American citizens whose achievements in outdoor activity, exploration and worthwhile adventure are of such an exceptional character as to capture the imagination of boys ". The other eighteen who were awarded this distinction were: Roy Chapman Andrews; Robert Bartlett; Frederick Russell Burnham; Richard E. Byrd; George Kruck Cherrie; James L. Clark; Merian C. Cooper; Lincoln Ellsworth; George Bird Grinnell; Charles A. Lindbergh; Donald Baxter MacMillan; Clifford H. Pope; George Palmer Putnam; Kermit Roosevelt; Carl Rungius; Stewart Edward White; Orville Wright. Apart from mentoring George Miksch Sutton, Fuertes influenced many later wildlife artists including Roger Tory Peterson, Jörg Kühn, Courtenay Brandreth, and Conrad Roland. The Wilson Ornithological Society established the Louis Agassiz Fuertes Award in 1947. Fuertes also painted dozens of mammal portraits for The National Geographic Magazine in 1916 and 1918, and inspired the Society to hire an artist of their own, Walter A. Weber. Many of Fuertes' paintings still remain popular and in very high demand today. In particular, a 1924 oil painting, Wild Turkey, sold for $86,250 at a January 2012 auction in New York and his other works command even higher prices to private collectors around the world. Fuertes' love of animals and landscapes comes through in his paintings; there is a notable vivacity and excitement present in his work that has created long term value.

Boynton, Mary Fuertes (Ed.) 1956. Louis Agassiz Fuertes: his life briefly told and his correspondence. Oxford University Press. Norelli, Martina R. American Wildlife Painting (Fuertes, Audubon, Heade, Wilson, Thayer, Catesby) Watson Guptill Publications, 1975.