John James Audubon

Born in 1785 in Saint-Domingue, now Haiti, and raised in France, John James Audubon became a French-American artist, naturalist, and ornithologist whose name is closely tied to the study of birds. He is remembered above all for his ambition to record the birds of North America in lifelike, dramatic poses.

That ambition led to The Birds of America, the remarkable series of illustrations that made him famous. His work stood out for its energy and detail, and it helped shape how generations of readers pictured American wildlife.

Audubon was more than a painter: he was also an explorer and observer of the natural world, traveling widely and turning what he saw into books and images that still attract readers today. His life and legacy are also discussed in more complicated terms now, but his influence on natural history art remains enormous.