Bird illustration in the twentieth century, with particular reference to publications on the British scene Alan Harris An angled telescope allows the artist to see the subject and the sketchbook simultaneously when sketching in the field. Note that the telescope is reversed on the tripod head, to prevent the pan handle from interfering with comfortable drawing. Alan Harris ABSTRACT This article traces the enormous developments in bird art for illustration during the past 100 years, with particular reference to books, magazines and other publications available to British birdwatchers. Emphasis is placed on those individuals who have broken new ground in the field of illustration.The search for the ‘perfect’ field guide is one of the key themes during the latter half of the century under review. This article is supported by The BIRDscapes Gallery Glandford, Cley-next-the-Sea, Norfolk NR25 7JP; tel. 01263 741742 266 © British Birds 100 • May 2007 • 266–279 Bird illustration in the twentieth century hen British Birds first appeared, in Keulemans finishing Lilford’s commission and 1907, it helped to meet the needs of a Archibald Thorburn (1860–1935), then Wgrowing body of people interested in working independently of patronage, was con- Britain’s birdlife. Although there were full-time tracted to complete the work. He produced 268 bird illustrators at work at the end of the nine- of the 421 plates, mostly the non-passerines. teenth century, they were few in number as These illustrations reappeared in several books there was only a limited and specialised market on British birds, for example as a single volume for their talents. The typical scenario would be Birds of the British Isles and Their Eggs by T. A. of an illustrator working under the patronage of Coward (1920). They were still being reprinted a wealthy individual, painting under their in this volume until the late 1960s when, inci- instruction. They would be painting from a dentally, four new plates were commissioned series of bird skins, perhaps collected for the from Robert Gillmor by publisher Frederick patron, to create a private collection of paint- Warne. ings or perhaps in order to publish a folio illus- A number of the plates from Lilford’s work trating their patron’s particular interest. Bird art were also used to produce the first widely avail- was thus commissioned by the wealthy enthu- able and accessible bird book, The Observer’s siast, reproduced only in classic nineteenth- Book of Birds, in 1937. This tiny volume was the century folios – with small print runs – and mainstay of many post-war ornithologists. Each sold exclusively to the wealthy collector and plate showed a species in a natural pose and museums. The advance from hand-coloured lithographs to chromolithography and letterpress colour reproduction was the sig- nificant first step in making the mass production of coloured artwork at low cost a possibility; this in turn would eventually make illustrated books available to a much broader range of people. The early decades of the twentieth century At the turn of the century, illus- trated bird books did not exist as we know them today; it was a spe- cialist field, reserved for the wealthy. For them, A History of the Birds of Europe by H. E. Dresser, published between 1871 and 1896, was the key reference of the day. It was illustrated by (among others) Dutch artist John G. Keulemans (1842–1912). Keulemans was one of the most prolific of bird painters, contributing to over 115 books. He lived in London from 1869 under the patronage of Richard Bowdler Sharpe, working from specimens in the British Museum. Keulemans also con- tributed to Lord Lilford’s multi- Fig. 1. Firecrests Regulus ignicapilla by John Keulemans, from Lord Lilford’s Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British Islands (1885–98). volume set Coloured Figures of the This example is typical of his work – the birds are accurate in Birds of the British Islands pattern and structure, if lacking a little in character, and are set (1885–98). Ill health prevented in well-executed habitat. British Birds 100 • May 2007 • 266–279 267 Bird illustration in the twentieth century setting, usually the brighter male but occasion- of the earliest published ‘jizz’-orientated illus- ally the pair (the female often just nominally trations. hinted at), without being specifically arranged to show field characters (notably the Common The Handbook Snipe Gallinago gallinago, with its bill deep in The Handbook of British Birds was published by mud!) or a range of plumages. Feather tracts H. F. & G. Witherby between 1938 and 1941, a were accurately portrayed, notably in the major triumph in war-time Britain. The five waders, and in this respect it was way ahead of volumes were a much enlarged and revised several later, ‘new’ field guides. It was with this version of the Practical Handbook of British small book that field observers were first armed. Birds, first published (without colour illustra- James Fisher regarded Thorburn as the first tions) between March 1919 and February 1924. great bird artist of the twentieth century. Thor- The Handbook at last had colour illustrations, burn was the first to embrace the new age of although these were not commissioned specifi- print and his work remained popular long after cally for the work. A series of 407 paintings by his death in 1935. In 1967, James Fisher Marinus A. Koekkoek (1873–1944) had been renewed interest in his work by reprinting the prepared in Lieden (from whence Keulemans plates from Thorburn’s four-volume British had learnt his trade) between 1922 and 1935 for Birds, originally published by Longmans a work on the birds of The Netherlands, De between 1915 and 1918, in his book Thorburn’s Vogels van Nederland by Dr E. D. van Oort. Birds, published by Ebury Press. They were large These formed the bulk of the coloured plates in plates, typically featuring several closely related The Handbook, but a number of additional species and covering almost every bird recorded plates were required to illustrate the British avi- in the British Isles at that time (including the fauna, and Witherby commissioned Roland ‘Hastings Rarities’), delightfully yet economi- Green (1890–1972), H. Grönvold (1858–1940), cally set in habitat. For me, it was to be an influ- George Lodge, Philip Rickman (1891–1982) ential introduction to bird art. and Peter Scott (1909–1989). Koekkoek’s illus- A series of 135 plates by Allen W. Seaby trations have, I think, been unfairly judged by (1867–1953) also proved highly influential to modern commentators. Both he and fellow budding bird painters in the early decades of countryman Keulemans were ‘museum men’ the twentieth century. They formed the bulk of and although Keulemans captured the ‘jizz’ of the illustrations in The British Bird Book by F. B. the living bird a little better and was able to Kirkman and F. C. R. Jourdain, published in 12 place it in habitat with confidence, the birds parts between 1910 and 1913. George E. Lodge depicted by Koekkoek are highly accurate, some (1860–1954) and Winifred Austen (1876–1964) showing field characteristics ‘discovered’ only (a fine painter and etcher of birds) also con- much later. In reviewing the work of these illus- tributed significant plates. A condensed volume, trators, it is worth remembering that fieldwork British Birds, with all the plates and facing pages would have been difficult; optics were of poor of text, was published in 1930 and reprinted quality and photographic references would have many times. The publishers, T. C. & E. C. Jack, been virtually non-existent. Travels abroad in reused many of the plates in several other search of the living bird were fraught with books. Kirkman produced perhaps the first dangers, as the young Keulemans discovered, small, pocket-sized book, British Birds (pub- having had to abandon plans to live in Africa lished by Nelson in the late 1920s), illustrated through ill health. with what Eric Ennion described as Seaby’s The Handbook was a massive step forward in ‘exquisite line sketches’ (Robert Gillmor pers. terms of both illustrations and text. Volume 3, comm.). This was enlarged and reprinted at featuring as it did raptors and wildfowl, sold least six times in the early 1930s. especially well and became the reference for the Another book published around this time learned country sportsman (A. Witherby pers. was The Bodley Head Natural History (1913), comm.)! The Popular Handbook, published in featuring some remarkable work by J. A. Shep- 1962, condensed the five-volume set into one, herd (1867–1946), a magazine illustrator and and contained within the text some of the first cartoonist. Unusually for the time, each species illustrations drawn specifically as field identifi- was illustrated by a series of simple field cation aids, some pen-and-ink drawings by sketches drawn directly from life; they are some Peter Hayman (1930–). 268 British Birds 100 • May 2007 • 266–279 Bird illustration in the twentieth century The post-war years Tunnicliffe’s work was by no means restricted to David Bannerman’s The Birds of the British Isles birds and he is well known to a wider audience (published between 1953 and 1963) was for his illustrations of rural life and for the another major work that deserves some discus- wood engravings for the books of Henry sion. It was a grand, 12-volume set more in the Williamson, such as Tarka the Otter. Inciden- style of a lithographic folio (taking ten years to tally, his true wealth of ornithological talent was publish) and featured the work of George fully appreciated only latterly, through publica- Lodge, who sadly never lived to see the set pub- tion of a selection of his field sketches, a reser- lished.