American Museum of Natural History Research Library
author: American Museum of Natural History

Fuertes, Louis Agassiz, 1874-1927
birth: 1874 February 7
death: 1927 August 22
Artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes (February 1874-August 1927), celebrated for his bird portraiture, helped to create many dioramas for the American Museum of Natural History in the early 1900s. In addition to artwork and exploration for natural history and scientific institutions, he illustrated popular books and magazines and worked for manufacturing and travel industries. He lived in Ithaca, New York, most of his life and participated in the American Ornithologists’ Union.
Artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes (February 1874-August 1927), celebrated for his bird portraiture, helped to create many dioramas for the American Museum of Natural History in the early 1900s. In addition to artwork and exploration for natural history and scientific institutions, he illustrated popular books and magazines and worked for manufacturing and travel industries. (1) He lived in Ithaca, New York, most of his life and participated in the American Ornithologists’ Union.<p>
Before graduating from Cornell University in 1897, Fuertes began to travel and to publish ornithological illustrations. Among his earliest and most significant scientific trips was the Harriman Expedition to Alaska in 1899-1900. (1) The artist joined many expeditions led by Frank M. Chapman, curator of ornithology at the Museum, during 1902-1914. (2) Fuertes’s fieldwork and art shaped the Hall of North American Birds: his Flamingo Colony Mural, his paintings of individual birds in the Cuthbert Rookery, Whooping Crane, and Canada Goose dioramas, and the background for the Birds of the Rockies diorama (which Museum colleagues painted, following Fuertes’s observations). (3) The artist collected bird skins avidly, wrote, and fulfilled commissions for paintings. (4)
Fuertes and Margaret (Madge) Sumner married in June 1904, and raised two children. Shortly after an expedition in Ethiopia during September 1926-May 1927 for the Field Museum of Natural History and the Chicago Daily News, the fifty-three year old artist died in an accident at Potter’s Crossing, New York, on August 22, 1927.
1874 February 7Born to Estevan Antonio Fuertes and Mary Perry. , Ithaca.
1902Opening of American Museum of Natural History's Hall of North American Birds. , New York.
1904The artist began his Flamingo Colony Mural for the Museum's Hall of North American Birds.
1910Expedition Site
1912Became fellow, American Ornithologists' Union.
1914Expedition Site
1927 August 22Fuertes died shortly after returning to United States, following an expedition in Ethiopia. , New York (state) .