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The greatest bird artist you've never heard of
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2023/04/29/rex-brasher-audubon-birds-artist/https://archive.ph/1BFO0 in case of paywall
Rex Brasher painted more birds than Audubon, and he never owned slaves
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=
A hand-colored print of green-winged teals by Brasher. (Rex Brasher Association)
More at the link.
Born in 1869, Brasher left an enormous body of paintings, almost 900 large-scale watercolors documenting American bird life and habitat, that became the source material for a monumental 12-volume compendium of hand-colored reproductions published as “Birds & Trees of North America.” He also made an unknown number of miscellaneous paintings and drawings, wrote a delightfully eccentric volume of philosophical reflections called “Secrets of the Friendly Woods,” and penned a hand-illustrated autobiographical account of his early forays, by sailboat, to document waterfowl from New England to Florida.
Brasher was a retiring artist — a modest man who lived much of his life off the grid — which may be one reason he isn’t more famous. But his life’s project to document American birds, an effort to outdo Audubon that began in the 1890s and continued into the 1920s, was celebrated in its day, with an exhibition at the Explorers Hall of the National Geographic Society in 1938. Later, when he began hand-coloring more than 87,000 individual plates for publication, the project attracted subscriptions from collectors and patrons, as well as universities and libraries. Today, a complete set of his printed work can fetch more than $40,000. He was praised by naturalists including John Burroughs (“he is the greatest bird painter of all time”) and T. Gilbert Pearson, who helped found the organization that would ultimately become the National Audubon Society (“When you see a Brasher bird, you have seen the bird itself, lifelike and in a natural attitude”).
But Brasher was very much a man of the 19th century, and despite periodic efforts to revive his work, his legacy — closely observed, naturalistic renderings of animal life — still suffers from having been out of step with the avant-garde and experimental art of the 20th century. That could change, however. The Connecticut State Museum of Natural History, which owns some 800 of the original watercolors, is planning to make them more accessible to the public with exhibitions in a new building, for which they will shortly begin fundraising. The efforts of the Rex Brasher Association, which has taken stewardship of the Upstate New York property near Kent, Conn., where Brasher lived until the mid 1940s, include digitizing and publicizing his work. And cultural changes, including a broader sense of what qualifies as fine art and a new urgency about the fragility of the natural world, may make people today more sympathetic to rediscovering his legacy.
Brasher may also benefit from growing awareness that Audubon, to whom he was often compared, was a complicated, often odious figure, whose interest in birds grew out of a raw will to power more than any particular love of the species. Audubon was a formidable artist but also a ferocious antagonist within what Audubon scholar Gregory Nobles calls the “ornithological wars of the 1830s.” He was also an enslaver and deeply contemptuous of the abolitionist movement in both the United States and the United Kingdom, where he spent considerable time preparing his landmark publication, “The Birds of America,” published between 1827 and 1838. The National Audubon Society is in turmoil today as local chapters drop the Audubon name and board members resign because the national leadership refuses to do so.
Brasher was a retiring artist — a modest man who lived much of his life off the grid — which may be one reason he isn’t more famous. But his life’s project to document American birds, an effort to outdo Audubon that began in the 1890s and continued into the 1920s, was celebrated in its day, with an exhibition at the Explorers Hall of the National Geographic Society in 1938. Later, when he began hand-coloring more than 87,000 individual plates for publication, the project attracted subscriptions from collectors and patrons, as well as universities and libraries. Today, a complete set of his printed work can fetch more than $40,000. He was praised by naturalists including John Burroughs (“he is the greatest bird painter of all time”) and T. Gilbert Pearson, who helped found the organization that would ultimately become the National Audubon Society (“When you see a Brasher bird, you have seen the bird itself, lifelike and in a natural attitude”).
But Brasher was very much a man of the 19th century, and despite periodic efforts to revive his work, his legacy — closely observed, naturalistic renderings of animal life — still suffers from having been out of step with the avant-garde and experimental art of the 20th century. That could change, however. The Connecticut State Museum of Natural History, which owns some 800 of the original watercolors, is planning to make them more accessible to the public with exhibitions in a new building, for which they will shortly begin fundraising. The efforts of the Rex Brasher Association, which has taken stewardship of the Upstate New York property near Kent, Conn., where Brasher lived until the mid 1940s, include digitizing and publicizing his work. And cultural changes, including a broader sense of what qualifies as fine art and a new urgency about the fragility of the natural world, may make people today more sympathetic to rediscovering his legacy.
Brasher may also benefit from growing awareness that Audubon, to whom he was often compared, was a complicated, often odious figure, whose interest in birds grew out of a raw will to power more than any particular love of the species. Audubon was a formidable artist but also a ferocious antagonist within what Audubon scholar Gregory Nobles calls the “ornithological wars of the 1830s.” He was also an enslaver and deeply contemptuous of the abolitionist movement in both the United States and the United Kingdom, where he spent considerable time preparing his landmark publication, “The Birds of America,” published between 1827 and 1838. The National Audubon Society is in turmoil today as local chapters drop the Audubon name and board members resign because the national leadership refuses to do so.
3 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Thanks for the heads up. 
Edit after reading up on Brasher. OMG!!! What a great man and fabulous artist. I will NEVER look upon Audubon's are in the same light as before. Thank you again. 
