“A” is for Audubon, John James [1785-1851]. Artist. Ornithologist. Naturalist. Born in Santo Domingo and reared in France, Audubon arrived in America in 1803. By 1820 he was supporting himself as a portrait painter and taxidermist when he determined to publish an illustrated work on the birds of North America. He spent the next decades travelling in America, England, and France to undertake this monumental project, published as The Birds of America between 1827 and 1838. In 1831 Audubon traveled to Charleston to find and paint southern birds. During the 1830, he made the home of local naturalist, the Rev. John Bachman, the center of his work in America. Later Bachman was his co-author a three volume work, The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America. The original oversized, four volume folio edition of The Birds of America established Audubon’s reputation as America’s leading nature artist.
