John James Audubon

John James Audubon dedicated his life to documenting and preserving images of North America’s birds and wildlife. Born in 1785 in what is now Haiti, Audubon was the son of a French naval officer and his Creole mistress. Raised in France during the Revolution, he fled to the U.S. in 1803 to avoid conscription into Napoleon’s army. Though he briefly studied art in France and Mississippi, Audubon was largely self-taught as both an artist and naturalist. Fascinated by American birds, he traveled extensively throughout the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys, producing thousands of detailed watercolors for his landmark work, The Birds of America (1828–1838). His art captured birds in lifelike poses and often preserved extinct species in vivid detail. A tireless explorer, writer, publisher, and environmentalist, Audubon later expanded his work to mammals with Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America (1845–1848), further cementing his legacy in American natural history.