Rex Brasher (July 31, 1869 – February 29, 1960) was an American watercolor painter and

ornithologist Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...

in the vein of

John James Audubon John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin; April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was an American self-trained artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictoria ...

and

Louis Agassiz Fuertes Louis Agassiz Fuertes (February 7, 1874 Ithaca, New York – August 22, 1927 Unadilla, New York) was an American ornithologist, illustrator and artist who set the rigorous and current-day standards for ornithological art and naturalist depiction ...

. Brasher's 875 surviving paintings depicted 1,200 species and sub-species of North American birds in accurate detail, representing all the species and sub-species identified in the

American Ornithologists’ Union The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is an ornithological organization based in the United States. The society was formed in October 2016 by the merger of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) and the Cooper Ornithological Society. Its m ...

’s ''Checklist of North American Birds.''

Biography

Born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, Brasher started to paint birds at the age of 16. He traveled throughout the United States, visiting every state in an effort to find birds to paint, betting on horse races and working odd jobs to support his travels. In 1911, he purchased a 150-acre farm, which he called Chickadee Valley, in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

. In 1924, Brasher completed his magnum opus, ''Birds and Trees of North America'', which was published in a limited run of 100 twelve-volume copies. In 1939, his paintings were exhibited at the Explorers Hall of the

National Geographic Society The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, and ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

Brasher died in 1960 at home in

Gaylordsville, Connecticut Gaylordsville is a village in the northwest corner of the town of New Milford, Connecticut, New Milford, Litchfield County, Connecticut, Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. It was listed as a census-designated place (CDP) prior to the 20 ...

, at the age of 90.

Artwork

The State of Connecticut purchased Brasher's collection of original paintings in 1941 for $74,000, intending to build a gallery to showcase the collection at Kent Falls State Park. Funding never materialized, so the paintings moved to Harkness Memorial State Park in southern Connecticut, where they were exhibited starting in 1953, following a decade in the basement of the Connecticut State Library in Hartford. The collection was transferred to the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...

in 1988. It is held at the

Thomas J. Dodd Research Center The Dodd Center for Human Rights (formerly the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center) is a University of Connecticut center which supports programming, educational initiatives, and events dedicated to the theme of human rights. The Dodd Center also houses ...

References

External links

Rex Brasher Association
*
Birds and Trees of North America
' -

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...

record
Finding aid to the Rex Brasher Collection
– University of Connecticut Archives & Special Collections
''Rex Brasher: Painter of Birds - A Biography'' by Milton E. Brasher (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1962)
–

HathiTrust HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Brasher, Rex 1869 births 1960 deaths American zoologists American ornithologists American ornithological writers American male non-fiction writers Painters from Brooklyn People from Kent, Connecticut 20th-century American painters Painters from Connecticut American watercolorists American male painters American bird artists American naturalists 20th-century American male artists