page_title: Louis Agassiz Fuertes
section_title: Career and personal life
hierarchical_section_title: Louis Agassiz Fuertes / Biography / Career and personal life
caption_attribution_description: Louis A. Fuertes, expedition artist, sitting on couch with a small monkey on his shoulder who appears to be grooming Fuertes. The monkey is the dog-faced baboon named Tinish, the expedition mascot. 1927. Name of Expedition: Daily News Abyssinian Expedition Participants: Wilfred Osgood, Louis Agassiz Fuertes, C. Suydam Cutting, Jack Baum, Alfred M. Bailey Expedition Start Date: September 7, 1926 Expedition End Date: May 20, 1927 Purpose or Aims: Zoology Mammals and Birds Location: Africa, Ethiopia [Abyssinia] Original material: Album print Digital Identifier: CSZ56119 Learn more about The Field Museum's Library Photo Archives.
context_page_description: Louis Agassiz Fuertes was an American ornithologist, illustrator and artist who set the rigorous and current-day standards for ornithological art and naturalist depiction and is considered as one of the most prolific American bird artists, second only to his guiding professional predecessor John James Audubon.
context_section_description: After graduating from Cornell in 1897 he became an apprentice to the painter Abbott H. Thayer.  In 1898, he made his first expedition, with Thayer and his son Gerald, to Florida.  In 1899, Fuertes accompanied E. H. Harriman on his famous exploration of the Alaska coastline, the Harriman Alaska Expedition.
  Fuertes later traveled across much of the United States and to many countries in pursuit of birds, including the Bahamas, Jamaica, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, and Ethiopia. Fuertes collaborated with Frank Chapman, curator of the American Museum of Natural History, on many assignments including field research, background dioramas at the museum, and book illustrations. While on a collecting expedition with Chapman in Mexico, Fuertes discovered a species of oriole. Chapman named it Icterus fuertesi, commonly called Fuertes's oriole after his friend.
  In 1904 Fuertes married Margaret F. Sumner and they had a son, Louis Sumner, and a daughter, Mary.
  Fuertes regularly lectured on ornithology at Cornell University beginning in 1923. Fuertes was an able imitator of bird song and even made a trial recording for a Victor record in 1913.
  In 1926–27 he participated in the Field Museum's Abyssinian Expedition led by Wilfred Hudson Osgood. He produced some of his most exquisite bird and mammal watercolors as a result of this trip.
caption: Fuertes and baboon, Abyssinian Expedition (1927)
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