To a Young Bird Artist

These collected letters were written by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, one of the country’s most well known bird artists, to ornithologist and bird illustrator George Miksch Sutton when Sutton was still a boy struggling to learn the art of bird painting. Written between 1915 and 1927, the letters are filled with Fuertes’ observations of bird behavior, descriptions of his bird study and painting techniques, and advice on how to paint lifelike avian images and make one’s way in the rapidly changing birding world all at a time when birding was becoming less an exclusive activity for scientists and more a popular hobby for the general public. Words of wisdom from the “father of modern bird art” A birding classic brought back to print.