Louis Agassiz Fuertes
Louis Agassiz Fuertes (1874–1927) was an ornithologist, artist, and illustrator. Fuertes was born into a scientific home—his father, Puerto Rican astronomer and civil engineer Estevan Fuertes, even named him after naturalist Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz.
Fuertes became interested in studying and drawing birds at an early age, but didn’t seriously pursue it until after graduation from Cornell University in 1897. He eventually travelled all over North America, as well as to Columbia and Ethiopia to study birds and create scientific illustrations of them. He worked on projects and did speaking engagements for Cornell University, the Field Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History (where his mural of a Flamingo Colony is in the Hall of North American Birds). As an artist and illustrator, Fuertes created illustrations for over 60 publications during his career. Known for his meticulous attention to detail, he studied birds in their habitats and gathered specimens to ensure the highest level of realism. Fuertes also has two birds named after him, Fuertes’s Parrot (Hapalopsittaca fuertesi) and Fuertes’s Oriole (a subspecies of the Orchard Oriole, Icterus spurius fuertesi).
Publication: Birds of New York
In 1904, Fuertes was commissioned by then New York State Museum Director, John Mason Clarke, to provide illustrations for an extensive research study on the state's bird species. The resulting publication, Birds of New York (published in 2 volumes, 1910 and 1914), was a groundbreaking work that combined scientific rigor with artistic beauty.
Written by Elon Howard Eaton, a biology teacher and naturalist, the book featured extensive research on the state's bird species, including migration patterns, distribution maps, and behavioral observations. What truly set this publication apart was the stunning artwork by Fuertes, whose vivid bird illustrations brought the text to life.
Celebrated for its depth and accessibility, Birds of New York not only became a valuable resource for ornithologists but also sparked a lasting interest in bird conservation and study across the state. Even 100 years after its initial release, it continues to hold significance for ornithologists and bird enthusiasts alike.
Fuertes' Illustrations in Birds of New York Hall
In 1915, the New York State Museum acquired 120 of the original Birds of New York watercolor paintings created by Fuertes, a gift of Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage (Mrs. Russell Sage).
In 2020, several reproductions of these watercolors were added to the NYSM's renovated Birds of New York Hall. We invite you to visit the gallery to see them in person, or view them individually below!
Fuertes Mountain Gorilla
In the August 1925 issue of the French periodical Revue du Vrai et du Beau [Review of the True and Beautiful], a brief article and a photograph document a pair of bronze bookends, each of which depicts a gorilla contemplating a butterfly. The sculpture had been loaned to an exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia by the artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes. Significantly, the reviewer cites the bookends as “the only sculpture which this artist has ever executed.”
Fuertes’ naturalist interests subsequently took him on expeditions to the American southwest, the Bahamas, the Pacific Coast, Canadian Rockies, Mexico, South America, and Jamaica. In the early 1920s, he participated in an expedition to Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia), where he was exposed to the habitat of Africa’s mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei). This strong, powerful, yet shy and gentle creature apparently captured Fuertes’ imagination. Using photographs and zoo specimens to create the original clay model, he subsequently rendered the primate’s essential nature in cast bronze.
Fuertes was killed in a railroad crossing accident near Unadilla, N.Y., in August 1927, ironically two years to the month after the bookends appeared in the French periodical.
The New York State Museum’s single bookend, one of the pair, apparently arrived in the institution’s collections sometime between 1915, when five dozen watercolors of birds by Fuertes were presented by Mrs. Russell Sage, and 1977, when the Fuertes collection was transferred from the Museum’s natural history collections to the art collection. Its presumed mate is now in the extensive Fuertes collection at Cornell University.
Louis Agassiz Fuertes (1874–1927)
Mountain Gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei)
Cast bronze, 1923
8 ¾ inches x 9 inches x 7 ¼ inches diameter
NYSM H-1977.74.121
More Than an Artist: Fuertes’ Lasting Legacy in Birds
Louis Agassiz Fuertes is best remembered as an artist, renowned for his illustrations in 17 bird books as well as murals and museum dioramas. Yet his legacy to ornithology extends beyond art and includes more than 3,600 bird specimens that he collected, beginning in his youth and continuing until his untimely death at age 53 in 1927. While most of these specimens are preserved at the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates in Ithaca, NY, a small number have found their way into other collections.
The New York State Museum is fortunate to hold one such specimen: a study skin of a Bridled Tern (Onychoprion anaethetus) collected by Fuertes during his 1902 expedition to the Bahamas. In 1907, Fuertes gifted this specimen to his friend and colleague Elon Howard Eaton, as the two collaborated on the landmark NYSM publication Birds of New York (published in 1910 and 1914). Eaton, a Professor of Biology at Hobart College and curator of its natural history museum from 1908 to 1934, incorporated the bird collection into teaching for many decades. In 2012, that collection was donated to the New York State Museum, where the Bridled Tern, pictured here, now resides.
The specimen tag written in Fuertes' own hand reads:
"Bridled Tern
Oct 30, 07. From LAF to EAE"
