The passenger pigeon was a pigeon species endemic to North America, found through most of the continental United States east of the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Coast and north of Mississippi. Although hunted by Native Americans, it was the most abundant bird in North America when Europeans arrived. Its numbers declined gradually during the 19th century, followed by a rapid disappearance after 1870. Although its endangered status was recognized in the late 19th century, efforts to preserve the birds came too late to save it from extinction.<\/p>\n
John A. Ruthven was a wildlife artist based in his native Ohio, as well as a naturalist, author and lecturer. A major retrospective exhibition of his work at the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History was titled \u201cJohn A. Ruthven — In the Audubon Tradition,\u201d an apt characterization since like John James Audubon, his paintings are the result of careful study of the bird in the field as well as from preserved bird skins. In addition, they are rendered in meticulous accurate detail, including plants from their natural habitat as part of the composition. Indeed, the offered aquatint based on Ruthven’s painting was printed on the same type of paper Audubon used for his Elephant Folio. Ruthven selected the colorists for the aquatints, who provided the additional hand coloring to match his original paintings; they each respectively signed the prints in pencil along the bottom edge.<\/p>\n
Ruthven was drafted into the Navy right after high school and served two years during World War II. He was interested in art and was essentially self-taught, also doing some drawing and cartooning for the Navy. After his discharge he opened a commercial art studio in Cincinnati in 1946. In 1960 Ruthven won the Federal Duck Stamp competition, a major prize for a bird artist, which he characterizes as a defining moment for his career, because he was immediately approached by Abercrombie & Fitch to sell his work nationwide. From that point on he was able to devote himself to wildlife art full time. He has also produced works on other natural history subjects, such as mushrooms and other animals. He has traveled around the world on commission to paint wildlife. Ruthven\u2019s works have been exhibited nationally and internationally at both art and natural history museums, including the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History in Jamestown, New York, and the Hiram Blauvelt Art Museum in Oradell, New Jersey, and are also in numerous public and corporate collections. In 2004, Ruthven was awarded the National of Medals of Arts by President George W. Bush in a ceremony at the White House. In 2019, the Cincinnati Museum Center published his memoirs.<\/p>\n
Norma Gloria Morgan was an engraver and painter known for her printmaking and Expressionist imagery. An African-American artist, she studied at the Arts Student League with Hans Hofmann, and with the renowned printmaker Stanley W. Hayter. Her works are in the collections of major museums including the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She has won numerous awards for her work.<\/p>\n
Inscriptions in Title Block: Original Watercolour by John A Ruthven. 229\/500. Engraved by Norma Morgan. Printed by Andersen-Lamb (Hand-coloured), New York. Published by Wildlife Internationale, Georgetown, Ohio, U.S.A. \u00a9 1973.<\/p>\n
Condition: Generally fine overall with only minor handling. Signed by Ruthven in pencil.\u00a0 Also signed by the colorist, bottom left edge.<\/p>\n
References:<\/p>\n
\u201cCET Express – John Ruthven.\u201d Cincinnati Public Media. <\/em> 13 July 2006. http:\/\/www.cetconnect.org\/genericPlayer.asp?id=417 (5 September 2008).<\/p>\n Hollister, Dean, Amy I. Furman, Mary Bruccoli and Tamara Adams, eds. Who\u2019s Who in American Art.<\/em> New York: R.R. Bowker, 1989. p. 746.<\/p>\n \u201cJohn A. Ruthven \u2014 The 20th Century Audubon.\u201d Ruthven.com.<\/em> http:\/\/ruthven.com\/about-me\/ (30 August 2018).<\/p>\n “John Ruthven, master wildlife artist, naturalist, philanthropist, dead at 95.”\u00a0Cincinnati Enquirer.<\/em> 12 October 2020. https:\/\/www.cincinnati.com\/story\/news\/2020\/10\/12\/john-ruthven-artist-and-philanthropist-dead-95\/662982002\/?fbclid=IwAR1BOsQYZQCLpuI5CN0SU0nwLoj9TUpyidBd6y9hf-tz0Mdf1BH0fxr8c3w (13 October 2020).<\/p>\n \u201cNorma Gloria Morgan.\u201d AskArt.com.<\/em> 2000-2008. http:\/\/www.askart.com\/AskART\/artists\/search\/ArtistKeywords.aspx?artist=106989 (8 September 2008).<\/p>\n “Passenger pigeon.”\u00a0Wikipedia.<\/em>\u00a01 September 2018. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Passenger_pigeon (4 September 2018).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" John A. Ruthven (1924-2020) (after) A large print of three passenger pigeons in flight above grasslands, indicated by the silhouettes of a dark branch and windblown blades of yellow grass. The painting depicts a female bird in profile at the top and two males below, positioned to show the bird’s coloration from the front and the back. This aquatint was produced after a watercolor by ornithological artist John Ruthven. Like many of Ruthven’s bird paintings, it presents a species that has either disappeared or been threatened with extinction by human activity. The passenger pigeon was once the most abundant bird to North America, but a combination of hunting and habitat destruction brought about its extinction in the wild by around 1900; the last survivor in captivity died in 1914. Therefore, this painting documents a species that is only known to us today from 19th-century images and museum specimens. He returned to this subject in 2014, when he completed a three-story mural commemorating the 100th anniversary of the death of Martha, the last surviving passenger pigeon, who died in 1914 at the Cincinnati Zoo.<\/p>\n Product description continues below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":33024,"template":"","meta":{"wds_primary_product_brand":0,"wds_primary_product_cat":0,"footnotes":""},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[976],"product_tag":[61,7048,2008,1054,7712,2458,2899,7727,1512,7713,5267,5217,3986,7719,1673,5264],"class_list":{"0":"post-20825","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-bird-ornithology-prints","7":"product_tag-20th-century","8":"product_tag-antique-print","9":"product_tag-aquatint","10":"product_tag-art","11":"product_tag-audubon","12":"product_tag-bird","13":"product_tag-birds","14":"product_tag-endangered-species","15":"product_tag-engraving","16":"product_tag-extinct","17":"product_tag-morgan","18":"product_tag-ornithology","19":"product_tag-passenger","20":"product_tag-pigeon","21":"product_tag-print","22":"product_tag-ruthven","23":"post","24":"post-with-thumbnail","25":"post-with-thumbnail-large","27":"first","28":"instock","29":"purchasable","30":"product-type-simple"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/20825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/20825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34599,"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/20825\/revisions\/34599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=20825"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=20825"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=20825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nNorma Gloria Morgan (b. 1928) (engraver)
\nAndersen-Lamb (printed and hand-colored)
\nPassenger Pigeon, Ectopistes Migratorius<\/strong>
\nWildlife Internationale, Georgetown, Ohio, 1973
\nHand-colored aquatint
\nSigned in pencil lower right: John A. Ruthven
\nEdition numbered in pencil in title block lower left: 229\/500
\nSigned in pencil by individual colorist, lower edge
\n35.25 x 23.75 inches, image plate mark
\n42.25 x 27.75 inches, overall
\n$600<\/p>\n