Today — April 26th 2012 — is Audubon’s 227th birthday. Audubon’s art appears in many places, credited or not. I occasionally spot his artwork, usually as part of residential decor, in movies both old and new. I’ve also seen his work on album and book covers, and quoted or modified in the works of 20th and 21st century artists including the often ferocious work of Walton Ford and the work of Andrew Brandou (whose “After Audubon” series put Audubon’s animals and birds into some very peculiar outfits and surroundings). Last year Google marked the day with a special Doodle composed of ten Audubon birds taken from eight different Havell prints.
My first Audubon folio. The Bien version of the Barn Owl is a daytime scene with a bright blue sky but the birds look identical to those in the Havell night scene.
Audubon’s work is ubiquitous and has sunk deep into our collective consciousness. The first time I bought an Audubon folio print (in 1998 at my friend Ed Kenney’s gallery, Audubon Prints & Books in Vienna VA), I saw several Havells within my price range, including a trimmed PL 167 Key West Dove and a full sheet PL 144 Acadian Flycatcher. But I simply could not turn away from the Bien Barn Owl (which was at the limits of my budget). Those cavorting birds looked FAMILIAR to me, like something I had known all of my life. Although the Havell image of the Barn Owl is a night scene, and the Bien print shows a daytime scene, the SHAPE of the owls is what stood out in my mind. I really enjoyed owning that print. The owls against the blue was lovely, not as dramatic as the contrasty Havell, and of course not as sharp, but everyone who visited my home noticed that print. I’ve owned and sold two Bien Barn Owls. The second one I sold to a Havell collector, and after he received it he could not stop marveling over how much he loved the print.
For me, it’s always interesting to see John James Audubon’s work reinterpreted by someone, and in this case it was someone who knew him very well, his son John Woodhouse Audubon. There are several other interesting variations in the Bien Edition on Audubon’s original work including the introduction of more elaborate backgrounds (e.g., Bien PL 3 Black Vulture or Carrion Crow, Bien PL 21 Great-footed Hawk, and Bien PL 14 White-headed Eagle) in a few of the prints with simpler backgrounds in the Havell Edition.
Two versions of Audubon's Black Vulture. The top image is from the Havell Edition, while the bottom image is from the Bien Edition. The background in the Bien version is much more elaborate. Most likely this background is the work of John Woodhouse Audubon, and the decision to add it to the image must also have been his.
I’ve often wondered what John Woodhouse Audubon must have felt, given the free license to change his father’s work. For the most part, he seems to have acted with restraint, adding only a few backgrounds, and adding a simple tint on most images where there had been only white paper. Some changes — for example lightening up the backgrounds on dark prints such as the Barn Owl, Great White Heron, and Jer Falcon) — seem to have been related to the limitations of color lithography versus that of hand-colored etching. The changes JWA made were consistent with the changes that he and his older brother Victor made to the octavo editions. Perhaps he worried what Victor — by that time an invalid and not much involved with the work — would say if he went too far. Or perhaps it never occurred to him that Audubon’s work could be improved. In any case, here’s wishing you a Happy Audubon’s Birthday.
Coincidentally, yesterday April 26, 2012 I visited Audubon’s grave in Trinity Cemetery and noticed that the birth date engraved on JJA’s monument reads May 4, 1780. This is the date which JJA, his biographers and family members claim he was really born on, however several others claim April 26, 1785 is his true birth date. I have requested positive proof of the later birth date but no one has been able to provide it thus far. This really needs to be resolved!
Thanks for your comment. The true date and details behind Audubon’s birth were first documented by Francis Hobart Herrick, the first truly disinterested and rigorous scholar to write a biography on Audubon. Titled Audubon the Naturalist, it was first published by Appleton in 1917, and is still considered an important work today. You might want to take a look at it — although out of print, it is available in libraries and also can be purchased at a fairly low price if you look for the 1968 Dover Publications reprint edition.
The source of the date on the monument was the Audubon family. One Audubon granddaughter, the formidable Maria Rebecca Audubon, published HER VERSION of Audubon’s journals in the late 1890s. Titled Audubon and His Journals (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1897), Maria concluded her writing process by burning the journals. About JJA’s birthday, she writes on p. 6 of Volume I, “…the date of Audubon’s birth is not known, and must always remain an open question. In his journals and letters various allusions are made to his age, and many passages bearing on the matter are found, but with one exception no two agree; he may have been born anywhere between 1772 and 1783 , and in the face of this uncertainty the date usually given, May 5, 1780 [SIC], may be accepted, though the true one is no doubt earlier.”
To obscure the true details of his illegitimate birth, Audubon often wrote contradictorily about his birth, changing dates and locations. Of course it is possible that he and his family observed his birthday in early May. I know in my own family, my mother’s birth certificate said one date, we observed her birthday on another date. As for the year of his birth, Audubon aged dramatically and in his later life was often thought older than he actually was. So that may have lead to the padding on the year.