Arthur Singer, the Wildlife Art of an American Master [UK ed.] 9781939125392, 1939125391

Citation preview

AR THUR SINGER THE WILDLIFE ART OF AN AMER ICAN MASTER

AR THUR SINGER THE WILDLIFE ART OF AN AMER ICAN MASTER

PAU L S I N G E R

ALAN SINGER

© 2017 Alan Singer, Paul Singer and Rochester Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any mechanical means without permission of the publisher and/or the copyright holders, except in the case of brief quotations. Every effort has been made by the publisher to trace and credit all known copyright or reproduction right holders. We welcome any oversight being brought to our attention. RIT Press 90 Lomb Memorial Drive Rochester, New York 14623-5604 http://ritpress.rit.edu Book and cover design by Paul Singer Cover photo: Anna Sears ISBN 978-1-939125-39-2 (print) ISBN 978-1-939125-40-8 (ebook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Singer, Paul, 1946- author. | Singer, Alan D., 1950- author. Title: Arthur Singer: The Wildlife Art of an American Master / Paul Singer, Alan Singer. Description: Rochester, New York: RIT Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016056808 (print) | LCCN 2016057373 (ebook) | ISBN 9781939125392 (print [hardcover]: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781939125408 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Singer, Arthur. | Wildlife artists--United States--Biography. Classification: LCC N6537.S558 S56 2017 (print) | LCC N6537.S558 (ebook) | DDC 700.92 [B] --dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016056808

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface

ix

Reflections on My Father

xii

Introduction By David Wagner

xiv

1

Safari to the Bronx

1

2

Jazz Was His Muse

9

3

At The Cooper Union

15

4

In the Ghost Army

21

5

Wildlife Illustrator

35

6

Birds of the World

49

7

Life After Golden

85

8

Unpublished Gems

91

9

Limited Editions

105

10 State Birds and Flowers

119

11 At the Easel

127

Epilogue

167

Bibliography

168

Exhibitions

170

Acknowledgments

172

Index

174

Credits

177 v

In memory of Arthur and Judy, with the deepest love and gratitude. And for Janet Scherer and Anna Sears, our significant others.

Lisl Steiner

Arthur Singer examining proofs of Birds of the World on the set of the Today Show in 1961.

Richard Biegun

viii

PREFACE Arthur B. Singer was a prodigious wildlife illustrator, and one of the world’s finest painters of birds. He was also a highly accomplished art director, designer, watercolorist, photographer, and jazz aficionado, who brought his love of nature to the world in magazine illustrations, paintings, prints, and books. He was my father. Singer’s fascination with animals began when he was barely a teenager, but his career as a bird artist wasn’t launched until the portfolio titled Bird Prints was published by The American Home magazine in 1956. The prints were a great success and came to grace the walls of fourteen million homes, boosting the wildlife print business in the process. In an era when the field of wildlife art barely existed, Singer was a trail-blazer, enticing the public to hang compositions of meadowlarks, pheasants, goldfinches and bluebirds on their walls. His illustrations were eventually seen in books, magazines, limited edition prints, stamps, greeting cards, porcelain plates, calendars, album covers, jigsaw puzzles, wallpapers, textiles, and even clothing. Shortly after the success of the Bird Prints, he and his colleague, Dr. Oliver L. Austin Jr., collaborated on the creation of Birds of the World, one of the most beautiful and comprehensively informative books on bird taxonomy ever published. It sold several hundred thousand copies in 1961, and was translated into eight languages. When it was republished in 1983, it was considered a classic by the ornithological community.

Singer’s Bird Prints, painted for The American Home magazine in the

Several years after the publication of Birds of the World, Singer redefined the concept of the bird guide, reinventing it from a descriptive, unimaginative format to one enlivened by the introduction of naturalistically rendered birds in their typical postures and habitats. Millions of bird-watchers loved and trusted their Singer bird guides, referring to them regularly. After the great success of The Golden Field Guide to Birds of North America, first published in 1966, it became the model for many of the dozen or more guides to North American birds published since the 1970s. In the 1980s, the US Postal Service asked Arthur to design and illustrate a sheet of 50 commemorative stamps published as the State Birds and Flowers Stamps. Purchased by millions of Americans, it would become one of the best-selling commemorative stamp sheets in U.S. postal history. Singer became well known in the environmental community for his illustrations in magazines such as National Geographic, Audubon, Smithsonian, and Natural History, and for conservation organizations such as Defenders of Wildlife and The National Crane Foundation, beginning as early as the 1960s. He was a committed conservationist and an environmentalist long before it became fashionable. He feared that many of the world’s

ix

mid-1950s, established his career as a bird artist, and helped popularize wildlife prints.

animal and plant species would be lost if rain forests, wetland habitats, grasslands, and forests continued to be devastated for commercial purposes. In recognition of the contributions he made toward raising public awareness through his art, the Audubon Society made him the recipient of its Hal Borland award in 1985. Less well known to the public are the paintings he created of his favorite avian and mammalian subjects. Singer’s paintings, executed in oil or gouache, are almost all based on direct observation and the photos he had taken for reference. They are a delight to behold. He injected life into each subject, which often looks as if we, the observors, have been secretly viewing it. Arthur Singer was a modest man of deep convictions, but as an artist he was a giant. Rarely a day goes by when I don’t think of him fondly and take inspiration in his memory. It was during one of those moments, not long ago, that it occurred to me that there was no existing comprehensive book about Arthur’s life and work, and that I, in collaboration with my brother, Alan, could write and design such a book, in recognition of the artist we admired and the father we loved. Therein lies the genesis of this volume. Today, twenty-five years after his death, our book attempts to assess the artistic accomplishments that Arthur Singer made to bird painting and to wildlife art in general. It encompasses the millions of people he helped bring to bird watching, the enormous body of work he produced, and the legacy he left to present and future generations of artists. This is the story of his evolution from a prodigiously talented teenager in the 1930s to the master wildlife artist that he later became. It is with pride and humility that I present, Arthur Singer: The Wildlife Art of an American Master. Paul Singer

February 2017

Peregrine Falcons in the Morning Mist appeared in Audubon magazine in 1979. It was painted after the death of Singer's wife, Judy, and inspired by Chinese landscape paintings. Peregrine Falcons in the Morning Mist Oil on board 1979 Collection of Alan Singer

Two Avocets at Bosque del Apache (opposite) 1981 Oil on canvas Collection of James Rogers

x

REFLECTIONS ON MY FATHER

Lenny Eiger

One hot summer day during my childhood, I accompanied my father to his office in the penthouse of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, where the Ben Sackheim Agency was then located. It was the 1950s, and the hotel had not yet been air-conditioned. The heat reminded me of my father’s studio in the attic of our home in New Hyde Park, where, in the summer, it often felt like an oven. Despite the discomfort, Dad would usually be at work on a book that needed hundreds of meticulous illustrations, and I soon came to realize that he should not be disturbed.

Arthur Singer in his garden in the 1980s.

From the age of five, throughout the next thirty-five years, I watched my father, and later I assisted him on one of his epic journeys as an artist and illustrator. Since his work was a branch of art closely related to science, it required research to get to know the subject intimately and get it right. He made regular trips to the American Museum of Natural History on Central Park West to borrow bird skins – specimens that are used as models for information, measurements, etc. Once Arthur was at home, he would assemble his art materials, consisting of pastel pencils, tracing paper, illustration board, gouache, finely pointed No. 00 sable paint brushes, and of course, the bird skins. He began work, starting with drawings, then tracings and finally painted images. The backgrounds didn’t just spring from his imagination. He went into the field to find and photograph source materials for the environments in which to place his subjects. As a family, we traveled to local parks and nature preserves in the hope of photographing birds that flew into range. By the late 1950s, my father was working on book projects for Golden Press. He began with Birds of the World and the Golden Guide to Birds of North America. Birds of Europe would soon follow. While I was a youngster, I decided that I also wanted to become an artist, so I observed how he did his work, and with the help of my mom, Judy, and my brother, Paul, I began to cultivate ideas about painting. Years later, after I had graduated college, my father offered to take me on as an assistant. Like Audubon, who had employed his sons, my dad had me work at the house as a salaried employee. I helped him revise his books, and contributed my own efforts painting backgrounds and botanical subjects for many projects from 1977 onward. I was able to paint the subjects that he assigned in such a way that our styles nearly matched. From years of looking at what he produced, I began to understand how he created a dynamic balance within a composition, and how much detail was necessary to describe a bird or an animal. After we had talked through the design process and sketched out alternative compositions, we would proceed. We worked together on a series of first-day covers for stamp collectors, and then the next year created the famous U.S. Postal sheet, The Birds and Flowers of the

xii

Fifty States. I remember several trips to meet the staff at the U.S. Postal Service during the process. There was rarely a problem, either with the research or with the completion of an image, which generally took about a week from first drawings to the finished art. In the mid-1980s, we worked on one last project together, a children’s book titled State Birds. At that point Dad had developed cataracts that made his work more difficult. Despite successful cataract surgery, he began to experience more serious problems with his eyesight, to the point that it affected his work on even the larger paintings. Dad enjoyed successful exhibitions at the Hammer Galleries on 57th Street in Manhattan in 1982 and 1984 and at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., in 1987. Martina Norelli, a curator at the Smithsonian, organized the exhibit with art from both the U.S. Postal Service project and the book State Birds. The exhibition at the Smithsonian was on view for five months, and drew almost two hundred thousand visitors. After that, I began my teaching career at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and work with my father came to an end. Alan Singer

February 2017

Twenty-six years after the success of The American Home magazine’s Bird Prints, the Postal Service released the fifty-stamp sheet called State Birds & Flowers in 1982. It became one of the bestselling commemorative sheets of all time. Shown above is the Eastern Bluebird and rose, the official bird and flower of New York State.

xiii

INTRODUCTION The world of bird art is relatively small and quite integrated. Arthur Singer belonged to that world for 40 years, as did I for a decade. Having subsequently dedicated a portion of my career to writing about wildlife art history, I have taken the liberty of blending my research with first-person experience to write this introduction, in the hope that the combination may make for an insightful and rewarding, contextualized read. But before I begin, I wish to thank Alan Singer and Paul Singer for inviting me to write this introduction.

Owen Gromme (1896–1991) Pileated Woodpeckers Oil on canvas Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum

Louis Agassiz Fuertes (1874–1927) Red-bellied Woodpeckers Watercolor on toned board Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum

I am old enough to have known Arthur Singer professionally during his lifetime, and, though that was long ago, young enough to remember him. I first met Arthur Singer on September 9, 1977, when he attended the opening reception of the Bird Art Exhibit, as it was titled then (now known as Birds in Art), at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin, where I had become director seven months earlier. At the time, Arthur was 60, I was 25. The museum had been inaugurated a year earlier with an invitational exhibition entitled Birds of the Lakes, Fields, and Forests. The inaugural exhibit contained work by artists recommended by Owen Gromme (1896–1991), among them Arthur Singer and two other painters from the east coast’s specialized world of bird art, Guy Coheleach (b. 1933) and Don Richard Eckelberry (1921–2001). Gromme was asked to recommend and invite artists to participate in the inaugural exhibition because he served as curator of ornithology at the state’s largest museum, the Milwaukee Public Museum, because he had illustrated and written Birds of Wisconsin, and because he was admired by the founders of the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Alice Woodson Forester and John E. Forester, who also numbered among the collectors who had acquired Gromme’s easel paintings. Like Owen Gromme and artists before him, notably Carl Rungius (1869–1959), the first major wildlife artist to escape the grind of illustration to produce and sell easel paintings, Arthur Singer had turned his attention increasingly toward easel painting during the decade of the 1970s, a step made possible by the commercial success he enjoyed in the 1950s and 1960s when his illustrations were published in books and magazines. This transformation was solidified in the seventies, when he was afforded the opportunity to have his paintings published as signed and numbered limited-edition prints by Frame House Gallery (formed in Louisville, KY in 1969 out of Ray Harm Wildlife Art, Inc.) along with Guy Coheleach, Don Richard Eckelberry, and Ray Harm among others. A historical phenomenon, signed and numbered limited-edition prints contributed greatly to the burgeoning commodification of wildlife art through print culture, beginning in the mid1960s and continuing through the 1970s, in tandem with an environmental movement that was shaped and fulfilled by legislation such as The Endangered Species Act.1 To celebrate the first anniversary of the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, John and Alice (Woodson) Forester recommended that its inaugural exhibit become an annual event.

xiv

To shape and advance this exhibit, the museum retained consultant George Harrison, a well-credentialed nature writer bursting with business savvy in the world of bird art. Harrison would not only re-shape the museum’s inaugural exhibit through his insights and recommendations, but over time, transform it as much and probably more than anyone. At his behest, changes to the exhibition included a new title – the Bird Art Exhibit – and selection by jury (though selection of decorative carvings and sculptures, which were far fewer in number than paintings, would gradually be performed separately by me or by staff). In its first year as a juried exhibition, the three jurors were ornithologists including Dr. Douglas Lancaster, director of Cornell University’s Laboratory of Ornithology. Among others in attendance at the opening of the 1977 Bird Art Exhibit was George Miksch Sutton, who was honored that year with an award entitled Master Wildlife Artist, created at the behest of George Harrison. Sutton, who would himself subsequently serve as a juror for the Bird Art Exhibit, was heir to the throne of Louis Agassiz Fuertes (1874– 1927), the first important American-born bird painter, who had become widely regarded as one of the country’s greatest bird artists of all time. By focusing on and combining characteristic attitudes, postures, behaviors, and ecological details of a particular species in a looser, freer style, Fuertes was able to portray birds with more integrity, as I have explained in greater depth in my book, American Wildlife Art. In this way, Fuertes elevated the art of natural history from an aesthetic of didacticism and taxonomy to one that provided a more penetrating view. Roger Tory Peterson later described Fuertes’ artistry in Freudian terms, saying he captured the “Gestalt,” or inner psychology, of the birds he painted. Whereas Audubon imbued his images of birds with human behavior, characteristics, expressions, and gestures, Fuertes portrayed characteristics of the species only, and in this way modernized American wildlife art in the twentieth century. George Miksch Sutton (1898–1982) Study of a Mississippi Kite (detail) Watercolor on paper Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum

Fuertes had mentored Sutton through extensive, heartfelt, instructive letters written over the course of twelve years between 1915 and 1927, which became part of the lore of bird art history when they were published in 1979. Astute writer that he was, George Harrison didn’t miss a beat when he recommended that the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum display a selection of work in the 1977 exhibit and catalogue under the masthead “Old Masters Corner,” which consisted of paintings by Louis Agassiz Fuertes on loan from the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York, where Fuertes was raised and where Sutton earned his Ph.D. Harrison also recommended that the museum retroactively recognize Owen Gromme as its 1976 Master Wildlife Artist. In addition to George Miksch Sutton and Owen Gromme, the two honored masters, and Arthur Singer, Guy Coheleach and Don Richard Eckelberry, others in attendance at

xv

Roger Tory Peterson (1908–1996) Arctic Glow Oil on canvas Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum

Don R. Eckelberry (1921–2001) Laughing Falcon Watercolor on toned board from Eagles, Hawks, & Falcons of the World Collection of Paul Singer

opening activities of the 1977 Bird Art Exhibit included Albert (“Al”) Gilbert (b. 1939) who became President of the Society of Animal Artists in 1977 and served to 1984, and Roger Tory Peterson (1908–1996). Roger Tory Peterson was, of course, a superstar in the world of bird art, because he conceived and published the first field guide in history in 1934. Consequently, the Woodson Art Museum would honor Peterson the very next year with the next Master Wildlife Artist Award. A decade younger than Peterson, Singer didn’t emerge in the bird art publishing scene until the 1950s, partly because of his age, but also because of the fact that his emergence was forestalled by World War II. Both artists had obtained professional training in New York City during an era when the art world was exploding away from traditional realism to abstraction in all its various isms and iterations. Peterson enrolled at and attended the sometimes avant-garde Art Students League at age 19, from 1927 to 1928, and then studied at the National Academy of Art & Design from 1929 to 1931. Singer enrolled at the Cooper Union Art School in 1935 and graduated in 1939. Of course, the entire decade was defined by the Great Depression. But for Peterson, even the Great Depression couldn’t stop his trajectory to the top of the bird art world. His field guide to the birds became a phenomenon. Singer, on the other hand, remained in art school through the Depression, only to have World War II stymie his career…but only briefly and in a way that contributed to his artistic development: in the army he spent 3½ years designing camouflage for tanks, trucks and other field equipment for the military campaign in Europe. Interestingly, Fuertes’ mentor, Abbott Henderson Thayer (1849 -1921), literally invented camouflage art, and his art was put to use in service of U.S. Armed Forces in World War I. After the war, Arthur Singer returned to work as an art director in an advertising firm where he’d worked after graduation before the war, and briefly to Cooper Union to teach. In the early 1950s, he started doing free-lance work, including illustrations for nature articles in Sports Illustrated. His first big break in bird illustration came when World Book approached him, after Don Eckelberry turned down an assignment due to competing commitments, to update its section on ornithology in the encyclopedia. This led to a commission to illustrate Birds of the World, published by Golden Books, that came out in 1961 and sold in the hundreds of thousands. A literal bibliography of other books illustrated by Arthur Singer followed, such as Birds of North America published by Golden (the first real challenge to the Peterson field guide), as well as others by other publishers including Birds of Europe by Hamlyn in 1968, all of which drove Arthur to work twelveto thirteen-hour days to produce countless bird illustrations through the turbulent 60s into the 1970s. (This might partly explain his desire to produce and market easel paintings, along with the fact that that such paintings could drive income and status from sales in posh commercial art galleries and display in elite art museums).

xvi

Don R. Eckelberry (1921–2001) Immature Skimmer Oil on canvas Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum

Among museums to display his art in the 1970s was, of course, the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum. Following my introduction to Arthur Singer in 1977, the museum featured his work in each and every Bird Art Exhibit throughout the course of my ten-year tenure as director. It was juried into the Bird Art Exhibit in 1978, and in 1979 (when his friend Don Eckelberry was honored as Master Wildlife Artist). The 1979 Bird Art Exhibit was subsequently displayed at the National Collection of Fine Arts (since renamed the Smithsonian American Art Museum). Arthur’s work was displayed at the Smithsonian along with all the other works in the 1979 Bird Art Exhibit, while his new work was juried into the 1980 Bird Art Exhibit. In 1981, the year that the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum honored Arthur Singer as Master Wildlife Artist, he chose the works that would be displayed in the exhibit, in lieu of jurors, as a benefit of his new status as Master Wildlife Artist. Another benefit was to have his work showcased in the United Kingdom; the Bird Art Exhibit featuring his work as Master Wildlife Artist toured to The Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh and The British Museum (Natural History) (since renamed, Natural History Museum, London) thanks to sponsorship arranged by George Harrison. Gracing the cover of the 1981 Bird Art exhibition catalogue was Caroni Swamp at Sundown—Scarlet Ibis, which was acquired for the museum’s permanent collection. The genesis of the painting was a 1965 visit Arthur made with Don Eckelberry to Trinidad, where the swamp is located. A few years later, Eckelberry helped raise the money to purchase one thousand acres of nesting habitat as a preserve for oilbirds and other tropical species. This eventually led to the establishment of the Asa Wright Nature Center (named after its former owner) as a non-profit with the dual purposes of promoting ecotourism and research. After being honored as Master Wildlife Artist in 1981, Arthur Singer remained as busy as ever, completing a set of fifty state bird and flower stamps for the U.S. Postal Service for release in 1982, the same year that Arthur had a one-man exhibition at Hammer Galleries in New York City. In 1983, Arthur’s friend and fellow New Yorker, Guy Coheleach, was honored as Master Wildlife Artist. That was also the year that I recommended that the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum re-name its flagship exhibition, Birds In Art, a name that has stuck ever since.

Guy Coheleach (1933– ) Osprey Fishing Gouache on toned board Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum

Regarding his place in history, I think of Arthur Singer as an artist situated squarely in the middle of mid-twentieth-century aesthetics, enterprise, and ideology. Like Fuertes, Peterson, and others at the top end of the century’s bird artist hierarchy, Arthur Singer provided content to a burgeoning publishing industry hungry for quality illustration for a print culture booming with commodities from magazines, to a range of books from tiny scientific field guides to large juvenile picture books and encyclopedias, to collector prints, stamps, and plates. Arthur Singer’s illustrations contributed immensely to public education and enjoyment of the natural world at a time when the environmental

xvii

movement would reach its zenith. His concern for the environment was both shaped and fulfilled by public and private conservation initiatives, not the least of which was major legislation such as the Endangered Species Act. Arthur Singer’s art differed, however, from that of predecessors like Fuertes and Peterson, and in this way, he distinguished himself as an individual. As one art critic wrote, “His subtle instinctive often mute color harmonies are unmistakable. But one is uniquely conscious of an overall design in his carefully thought out compositions – a dead giveaway of his early graphic design experience.2 This was certainly true in the work Arthur Singer entered for Birds In Art. Without exception, his work displayed the subtlest of tonalities and a beauty of patterned repetition. A foil, against which Arthur’s aesthetic could be assessed during these years, was the emergence of a crop of younger artists who had recently come out of commercial illustration and were practicing a new, photo-realist – some would say feather-counting – aesthetic. Arthur Singer took a more classical, oldschool approach, relying instead on a palette of muted colors and soft, fluid brushwork.

Arthur B. Singer King Eiders Gouache on board c. 1980s Private Collection

When asked if he worked differently when painting on assignment versus for the fun of it, Arthur answered, “On an assignment, I may make many careful progressive drawings before arriving at the final concept. But my watercolor landscapes may have no wildlife in the scene, and I enjoy the luxury and risk of the happy accidents that are the special delight of that medium.”3

Arthur B. Singer Loons in the Morning Mist (opposite) Oil on canvas 1981 Smithgall Collection

My personal feeling about the easel paintings that Arthur Singer submitted for Birds In Art over the exhibit’s first decade during my time as director, is that they gave the impression of ease, much like a great performance by a virtuoso musician,4 who makes his/her technique look easy to the point of being imperceptible compared to the beauty of the moment. I think it is fair to say the same thing about the art of Arthur Singer. David J. Wagner, Ph.D. Author, American Wildlife Art Chief Curator, David J. Wagner, L.L.C. Tour Director, Society of Animal Artists

1

David J. Wagner, SLEWAPS: Signed Limited Edition Wildlife Art Photolithographs, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Ph.D. Dissertation published by University Microfilms International Dissertation Information Service, 1999 2 George Magnan, “Arthur Singer: in the path of Audubon”, Today’s Art and Graphics, Syndicate Magazines, Inc., New York, Volume 29, Number 8, August, 1981 3 Ibid. 4 A metaphor which I believe Arthur Singer would have appreciated since he was a real jazz aficionado.

xviii

1

Safari to the Bron x Was it destiny that led the boy from Audubon Avenue to a career as one of the finest bird and wildlife artists of the twentieth century? His enduring fascination with nature? The resources and artistic stimulation of New York City? Or the fierce determination to take his vision and explore it to its fullest potential?

FROM AUDUBON AVENUE Arthur Bernard Singer was born to Tessie and Sigmund Singer on Dec. 4, 1917 in New York City. They were a second-generation middle-class Jewish family of Austro-Hungarian and German background. Arthur grew up in an apartment on Audubon Avenue in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan. From the age of five, his talent and interest in drawing the wonders around him became apparent to his parents. The earliest surviving drawings, dating from the early 1920s, depict subjects that would have fascinated any boy of his time: dirigibles floating over the New York skyline, battleships in the city’s harbor, and the railroad trains that ran along the west side of Manhattan Island. “I began to draw as soon as I could hold a pencil,” he would later recall during a transcribed interview at the Jericho Public Library in 1978: “I enjoyed watching the railroad yards and the trains coming in…the sound and the sight of them, and I remember making attempts to draw them. It seems that anything that intrigued me in that way, I would try to draw.”

Self-portrait Pencil on paper c. 1931 Collection of Paul Singer

He was especially attracted to the photographs of wild animals that he saw in magazines such as the National Geographic and began by copying the images. “At the time I collected every issue of the National Geographic, Natural History, Nature, and the Illustrated London News I could find in second-hand stores.” Recognizing his interest in animals, the family often visited the Bronx Zoo on weekends. There, radiating from the popular sea lion pool, were the seven splendid Beaux-Arts pavilions at Astor Court: The Administration Building, The Lion House, The Tropical Bird House, The Heads and Horns Building, The Gorilla and Ape House, The Monkey House, and The Elephant House. Other exhibits were scattered over the Bronx Zoo’s 265 sprawling acres. It was the largest North American zoo and is still among the largest metropolitan zoos in the world. Arthur loved the Zoo and from the age of eleven, began drawing animals from life, a practice that continued throughout his college years. “I did a lot of sketching in the Bronx Zoo and began to have ideas about how best to show various species of birds and mammals ... I wasn’t too interested in the science of animals but I was totally engrossed in picturing them.” He later noted that, “In real life, you see the animate object from all different

2

Hornbill and Toco Toucan Color pencil on paper c. 1934 Collection of Paul Singer (Overleaf) Lion study Drawing on paper c. 1936 Collection of Paul Singer

Ostrich Watercolor and ink on paper c. late 1930s Collection of Alan Singer

perspectives and learn much more from the actual living thing than (you can) working from pictures.” At first, he was noticed by the zoo keepers but was too shy to ask them questions. Later, more prestigious zoo personnel also noticed him, including Fairfield Osborn, New York Zoological Society President, and William Beebe, the Bronx Zoo’s curator of the bird collection. He was also befriended by

Indian Rhinoceros Pencil on paper c. late 1930s Collection of Paul Singer Exhibited at the Bronx Zoo in 1942.

Frank Buck—a frequent zoo-goer, writer, actor, filmmaker, and “great white hunter” who had met Arthur at the zoo one day and commissioned the young artist to create animal art for his collection. Today, looking at his youthful drawings, a viewer can’t help but be moved by the artist’s powers of observation. The drawings are confident and fluid and the anatomy is flawless. But more than that, they show an empathy for his subjects. His animals always seem alive. The American Museum of Natural History was also influential in his formative years. In autobiographical notes written decades later, Arthur said: “Visiting the American Museum of Natural History was very exciting [to me] because the great African and North American Halls were just being created. I was allowed into the exhibits to see how the backgrounds were painted.” He was no doubt referring to the iconic dioramas painted by Perry Wilson and Francis Lee Jacques, which still amaze visitors to this day. It is unknown, however, whether he ever spoke to Wilson or Jacques, to perhaps glean ideas or information, as no record remains. But it is interesting to note that, eightyfive years after their creation, the Wilson and Jacques dioramas are still considered in the museum world to be among the finest examples of diorama art in existence. Arthur learned much about creating the illusion of space in a landscape painting from these visits, and had a deep admiration for both artists. Later in life, he bought a fine painting of Lake Louise that Perry Wilson made during a summer spent in the Canadian Rockies.

5

Cock-of-the-rock Color pencil on paper c. 1936 Collection of Paul Singer Exhibited at the Bronx Zoo in 1942.

Indian Rhino in a Wallow Pencil on paper c. 1936 Collection of Paul Singer Exhibited at the Bronx Zoo in 1942.

Several curators at the Museum of Natural History were especially influential in Singer’s development as an artist. H. E. Anthony, the Museum’s Curator of Mammalogy, encouraged him when he was just a lad of eighteen. More importantly, he met Dr. Robert Cushman Murphy, the Curator of Ornithology. Murphy became a significant mentor, and decades later in the 1950s, Dr. Murphy would write an article on bird plumage for Sports Illustrated and consult on several major projects for which Arthur was the illustrator.

Pigeon studies Color pencil on paper c. 1936 Estate of Arthur Singer

While still in his teen years, Arthur began assembling a reference library that he would continue to build over his lifetime. Arthur’s library reveals his early artistic influences: Wilhelm Kuhnert (1865–1926), the great German painter of African wildlife; Carl Rungius (1869–1959), who came to the United States from Germany and immediately headed West to paint the large mammals of the Rockies as no one ever has, before or since; Ernest Thompson Seton (1860–1946),

an artist and popular writer of animal stories (Wild Animals I Have Known); and Francis Lee Jacques (1887–1969), the wildlife painter and dioramist whose work Arthur had first seen at the Museum of Natural History. As his interest in birds grew, he added to the collection books on John James Audubon (1785–1851) whose Birds of America is considered one of the finest works on ornithology ever created; Louis Agassiz Fuertes (1874–1927), one of America’s greatest and most prolific bird artists; and other notable artists including Paul Bransom, Charles R. Knight, Alexander Wilson, Allan Brooks as well as books on European artists Jacques Barraband, John Gould, and Bruno Lilijefors. While he was still in his early twenties and studying at the Cooper Union, the New York Zoological Society offered him an exhibit of his animal art. It was a great honor and the culmination of years of observation and practice. The exhibit was held in the Zoo’s Heads and Horns Museum Gallery in 1942, but as war had broken out, he had already been drafted into the U. S. Armed Forces. The New York Post ran a full page story on his exhibit. Decades later, in appreciation, Arthur painted several vignettes clearly showing the Bronx Zoo in the 1967 book, Zoo Animals. A continual source of inspiration, the zoo gave him great joy whenever he could return for a visit.

Indian Gaur (opposite) Color pencil on paper c. late 1930s Collection of Paul Singer Exhibited at the Bronx Zoo in 1942.

Jaguar Pastel on paper c. late 1930s Collection of Paul Singer

7

2 2

Ja z z Was His Muse “The letters...formed the name of every piece he [Cab Calloway] played in his repertoire. His booking agent flipped over it, and I got a great big $15 for it, which I thought was a fortune.” — Arthur Singer

IN A MELLOW TONE Although he had begun to sell his wildlife drawings by the age of fifteen, Arthur Singer was also a talented graphic designer and caricaturist who enjoyed early commercial success in those genres. Because of his love of jazz, he began to draw stylized caricatures of the “giants” of the era. Some of these caricatures, like those of Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, and Fred Astaire, were published in New York City newspapers or the jazz magazine, Metronome. Several were composed of letters forming the names of the band’s hit tunes. Half a dozen of these caricatures still exist, good examples of the popular culture of the Jazz Age. For Singer, Harlem in the 1930s was the hippest place in New York City. On any given day, he might see Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Willie “The Lion” Smith, Billie Holiday, Fats Waller or dozens of other fine musicians, depending on which clubs he visited. Passionate about jazz, he would take a ride on the “A” Train to the Cotton Club or visit Small’s Paradise. There, he would listen for hours and talk first-hand with the musicians, if he could. He began to collect jazz 78s, first by the dozen and later by the hundred. Several of the musicians he met befriended him, including Cab Calloway, who liked the young artist’s openness and passion for music. At the age of eighteen, Arthur drew a caricature of Calloway made up entirely of “letters which formed the name of every piece he played in his repertoire. His [Cab’s] booking agent flipped over it,” Singer told interviewer Lawrence Grobel in 1974, “and I got a great big $15 for it, which I thought was a fortune. They used it in every theater all across the country. They made huge blowups of it and ran a contest—anyone who got all the names that were on this thing would get in free.” He often said that had he been adept at a musical instrument, he would have chosen jazz over art. But he never even played a musical instrument. Instead, he did what he did best, designing logos for Cab’s bandstands or drawing caricatures for jazz posters.

Caricature of Cab Calloway, c. 1936. Arthur was a life-long friend of Cab Calloway, the

(Overleaf) Two caricatures of Fred Astaire, done in the late 1930s, were used as publicity broadsides for Arthur Singer’s commercial art. Collection of Paul Singer

“Hi De Ho” king. His caricature contained the names of 113 Calloway’s recorded songs. Prof. Cab Calloway’s Swingformation Bureau is a dictionary of “Hep” jargon. c. 1939

10

The Mooche, Caravan, Mood Indigo, Take the A-Train. These songs and others written by Duke Ellington really spoke to him. Arthur listened to Duke’s songs hundreds, maybe thousands of times. It was more than music to him; it became his muse. At seventeen, when he finally met the “Duke” he recalled his initial impression this way: “I really felt (he was) a genius at work, even though in those early days no one else considered him seriously. It wasn’t until years later that I felt justified in thinking of him as a genius. He was such a creative person and had such high standards. I had never met a person like him before, knowing him and seeing what integrity he had with his work. I thought that this is how it must be for a great writer, artist, musician or composer. This is how they must operate. And he was very encouraging to me...” —From an interview at the Jericho Public Library, 1978 By the late 1930s, Arthur had been befriended by Duke Ellington. He attended Duke’s club dates, concerts, recording sessions and later became a member of the Duke Ellington Jazz Society. He was often invited by Duke to his home in Harlem. In the 1950s, Duke asked him to design two record album covers, including a design that later became the album cover for In a Mellow Tone.

Caricature of the Duke, made up of his best known songs. Ink on board C. 1936 Collection of Paul Singer

Publicity photo of Duke Ellington with inscription to Arthur Singer. c. late 1930s Collection of Paul Singer

11

The friendships he had made with Ellington, Mercer Ellington, Cab Calloway, Harry Carney, Johnny Hodges, and Lawrence Brown lasted a lifetime, and in the 1970s, when members of his jazz “family” began to pass from the scene, it grieved him as deeply as if they had been members of his own family. His jazz collection grew so large that he finally ran out of room, and that didn’t include the large collection of 78s that he later gave to his friend, Jerry Valburn (whose enormous collection of Ellington material was eventually purchased by the Smithsonian Institution). Arthur believed that Duke Ellington would eventually be acknowledged as one of America’s greatest composers, and maybe even its greatest. In the late 1980s, he worked with the US Postal Service to design a commemorative stamp honoring Duke’s musical accomplishments, although the final design was executed by another artist. Jazz remained Singer’s life-long muse. The music of Ellington, Hodges, Armstrong, or Basie could always be heard in his studio, no matter the time of day or the ongoing artistic project.

The caricature Arthur drew of Franklin Roosevelt in 1936 was composed of the letters of his government programs, and was widely published in national newspapers. The Singer family treasures the note from Mrs. Roosevelt’s secretary, graciously acknowledging receipt of the original drawing.

Arthur Singer

Arthur photographed Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn and Willie “The Lion” Smith, after a recording session he’d attended earlier that day in 1964. Collection of Paul Singer

12

Fats Waller Ink on board c. 1937 Collection of Paul Singer

13

3

At the Cooper Union “My Instructor showed me Audubon’s double elephant folio, Birds of America. All five enormous volumes with 435 plates... The impact of those books upon me was tremendous.” — Arthur Singer

THE COOPER UNION

Many talented people attended the Cooper Union, and some became Singer’s closest friends. Most importantly, he met Edith “Judy” Goulfine in his second year at Cooper, and soon the couple became inseparable.

Family photos

The Cooper Union was the creation of its founder Peter Cooper (1791–1883), a highly successful industrialist, philanthropist, and inventor, who built the first steam locomotive in the United States. Cooper believed that a good education should be free and accessible to all who qualified, regardless of race, religion, sex, or social or financial status. So in 1859, made wealthy by his successful business ventures, Cooper endowed his Union to realize that vision: a tuitionfree school of higher education. In the depths of the Great Depression, it drew the best and brightest artistic, architectural, and engineering talent in New York City. In 1935, Singer competed for one of Cooper’s free scholarships and won admission to the art school that fall.

Arthur and Judy, c. 1940

Cooper prepared its art students with courses in advertising design, typography, illustration, painting, photography, and the skills necessary to compete in the commercial art world of the late 1930s. Arthur absorbed everything, thriving on new challenges. One of his instructors, Mrs. Harrison, wrote: “[Arthur] has worked in the Design Department at the Cooper Union for two years and has during that time done an extremely high grade of work, both from a creative and a technical point of view. His work is unusually personal for so young a student, and the execution has always had the mark one usually finds in a professional … he has never been known to paint a commonplace thing.” During his Cooper years, Arthur experimented with abstraction from nature, simplifying animals to their essence, inspired possibly by reproductions he had collected of the cave paintings of Lascaux and Altamira. His compositions of the late 1930s are highly stylized, often in motion, and unlike anything he had done before or after, a hybrid, as it were, between cave art and caricature. At some point, he must have realized that this approach was too decorative.

(Overleaf) The African Plains Gouache on board c. late 1930s Estate of Arthur Singer

16

Civet Cat Gouache on board c. late 1930s Estate of Arthur Singer

The Hartebeest painting (above) is typical of Singer’s works throughout the Cooper Union years and the early 1940s. Highly stylized, it shows the influences of graphic caricature and cave art. Hartebeests on African Plains Gouache on board c. late 1930s Collection of Paul Singer

17

On being introduced to the work of John James Audubon: “My instructor showed me Audubon’s double elephant folio Birds of America– all five enormous volumes with 435 plates, in books that weighed about 70 pounds apiece and were four feet high. The impact of those books upon me was tremendous. It was an overwhelming experience. I studied Audubon’s prints and I think that they were one of my best teachers... Audubon understood composition and design much better than any artist up

Although the Schumacher Company bought several of his designs (now in the collection of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum), his ambition was to be a wildlife artist, not a wallpaper designer. He’d have to find a different approach. In the meantime, he soaked up influences. When a professor introduced him to the master painters of China’s Sung Dynasty, Arthur began a lifelong love of Chinese and Japanese art. Their landscapes, steeped in a tradition that emphasized the timelessness of nature and insignificance of man, deeply resonated with his own personal philosophy. He also liked the vertical and panoramic formats of their art which he would later apply to his own paintings. He was especially interested in Hokusai and Hiroshige, Japanese master printmakers whose portrayals of birds, fish, insects, flowers and landscapes fascinated him.

to his time, and probably better than a lot of them since, and I decided that here was a way that appealed to me. I could see its application to wildlife illustration.” —From an interview at the Jericho Public Library, 1978

In the Western tradition, Louis Agassiz Fuertes was the American bird artist whom Arthur most deeply admired. He admired Fuertes’ sensitive brushwork and his powers of observing the individuality of each subject. “I loved his bird paintings and particularly his studies and portraits, and I knew his work long before I saw anything of Audubon’s.” He also observed Fuertes’ shortcomings, especially when painting subjects in a landscape: “They looked flat and the perspective was off” Singer said. “Fuertes really didn’t understand how to use light and shade in a scene.” —From an interview at the Jericho Public Library, 1978 His epiphany came one day after a professor had introduced him to the work of John James Audubon, which until then he had not yet seen. He was overwhelmed. Audubon’s dynamic sense of design spoke to him. “It had an enormous impact on me and shifted my attempts from mammals to birds.” Years later when he could afford them, he bought eight original Havell edition Audubon prints to decorate his home, although his wife couldn’t understand how he could spend so much money ($200) on something as unnecessary as an old bird print. Art Singer graduated from Cooper in 1939 with high honors. He aspired to become a wildlife artist, but knew that his dream might have to be deferred. In the throes of the Depression, there was little opportunity or interest in wildlife art in the United States. Instead, he took a job at a printing plant.

Hungry Hyenas Gouache on paper c. 1938–1942 Estate of Arthur Singer

Within a year, his luck had changed again, after he teamed up with the ambitious advertising man and raconteur, Ben Sackheim. They formed the Ben Sackheim

18

Caribou Watercolor on paper c. 1939 Collection of Paul Singer This is another example of a Singer painting influenced by Neolithic cave art

Advertising Agency and ran the two-person shop (as related by Mr. Sackheim to this author in the 1980s) which eventually grew to become one of New York’s better-known agencies, with nationwide accounts and a staff of 70. With a secure position as art director and a steady income, Arthur and his wife Judy were married in 1941 and settled in Queens, New York. Things were going better than they could have expected until the morning of December 11, 1941.

19

4

In the Ghost A rmy “In more than one way I was overjoyed today… I came upon a scene that makes everything I’ve seen in Europe pale by comparison!” —Arthur Singer

THE 603RD CAMOUFLAGE ENGINEERS “It was snowing a little and cold as the devil in the morning… the scene reminded me of a combination of Brueghel’s winter scene and a Chinese print, it’s so abstract, flat, and full of movement. How I wish I could paint a great big canvas of that place!” ɠ Arthur Singer, in a letter to Judy in 1945 Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, America entered the war that would forever change the lives of millions of men and women throughout the world. Singer’s draft notice arrived in 1942. He spent basic training at Fort Meade and was assigned to an infantry company. Prior to shipping out, and with time on his hands, he climbed to an elevation above the camp to paint a watercolor, when a general chanced to walk by. Observing the artist painting, he transferred Singer on the spot to Company C of the 603rd Camouflage Engineers, part of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops. Only later would Singer learn that his original unit had shipped out to Anzio, Italy and were decimated in that brutal offensive. Luck and a good watercolor had saved his life – at least that’s how he later remembered it.

Sgt. Timberman Watercolor on paper c. 1943-45 Collection of Paul Singer

The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops mission was deception, but the 603rd Camouflage Engineer’s mission was visual deception. The unit, classified as top-secret for forty years, comprised mostly artists and recording technicians needed by the Army for special operations. Future painter Ellsworth Kelly, fashion designer Bill Blass, illustrator Arthur Shilstone, photographer Art Kane, wildlife artist Arthur Singer and dozens of others spent three years creating not only camouflage, but visual, sonic, and audio deceptions to deceive German intelligence.

(Overleaf) View of Trier, 1945 Watercolor on paper Estate of Arthur Singer

Family photo

On the convoy to Europe in 1944, Singer documented the activities aboard the troop ship, Henry Gibbons. Later, he sketched and painted scenes of cities and villages that the 603rd passed through in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany, until their mission finally ended in Germany’s surrender in 1945. His watercolors and ink drawings show the war’s devastation but many simply reflect a landscape that interested him. A photo of Arthur Singer taken in Europe with an inscription on the reverse.

Snowy Morning in Briey, France, 1945 Watercolor on six sheets of paper Collection of Dr. Michael Howe and Mrs. Natalia Howe

24

According to documentary filmmaker Rick Beyer, the 603rd’s deceptions saved thousands of lives, shortened the war, and played an important role in defeating Germany. Beyer presented this little-known history in the documentary The Ghost Army which aired on PBS in 2014. The companion volume, The Ghost Army of World War II: How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived the Enemy with Inflatable Tanks, Sound Effects, and Other Audacious Fakery, was released in April 2015. They contain wonderful examples of the sketches and paintings created by artists in the unit, including eleven fine Singer watercolors.

Army Buddy Watercolor on paper c. 1943-45 Collection of Alan Singer

Pvt. Belisario Contraras Watercolor on paper c. 1943-45 Collection of Alan Singer

25

Portrait of Bernard Greenberg Watercolor on paper c. 1943-45 Collection of Paul Singer

Army friend – Harry Gottesman Watercolor on paper c. 1943-45 Collection of Alan Singer

26

Pvt. Arthur Singer painted portraits of many of his Army buddies in the 603rd and at least three known selfportraits. This example of self-portrait is undoubtedly the most riveting.

Self-Portrait Watercolor on paper c. 1943-45 Collection of Paul Singer

27

To set up and paint the snow scene in Briey, France that he had described in a letter to his wife, he received permission to use a warm room with a window overlooking the snowy hillside that had inspired him. Taping together six sheets of Whatman watercolor paper, he created a “big canvas” and began to paint. By the end of the afternoon he had finished the picture, A Snowy Morning in Briey shown at the beginning of this chapter. Over the course of three years in Europe, Singer painted dozens of landscape watercolors and ink-and-wash drawings that still survive. He painted another dozen watercolors of his buddies and probably more, as he would usually give them to his subject, when asked. As a group, these portraits demonstrate Singer’s remarkable ability to paint expressively in the unforgiving medium of watercolor. He sent his watercolors home, where they were given a well-publicized exhibition at the Franklin Society Federal Savings and Loan Association in New York City in 1946.

Pvt. Arthur Singer presenting Lt. Commander Robert B. Downes with the portrait he had just painted. Singer promised to paint free portraits for all buyers of the $500 Victory Bond in New York City. He ended up painting many free portraits. The Herald Tribune

Family photos

publicized the story in November, 1945.

A photo of Pvt. Arthur Singer and his wife, Judy, taken prior to shipping out to Europe in 1943.

Self-Portrait No. 2 Watercolor on paper c. 1943-45 Collection of Alan Singer

28

Trévières Church Watercolor on paper c. 1943-45 Collection of Paul Singer

29

In 2015, at the publishing event for Rick Beyer’s and Liz Sayles’ book, The Ghost Army of World War II, several surviving members of the 603rd, men in their late 90s, remembered Arthur well, adding these thoughts about their old army buddy of almost 75 years before: John Jarvie remembered: “The guys drew or painted all the time. Arthur Singer, the bird artist, if they put us in some place that we were going to be in for two weeks, sure as shooting, one wall of that place would have beautiful birds and animals on it, done by Arthur. He’d do the whole wall, think nothing of it. And he never penciled it in or anything – he just took his brushes and painted it. He was good.” Skull at Verdun Watercolor on paper c. 1944 Collection of Paul Singer

Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris (opposite) Watercolor on paper c. 1944 Estate of Arthur Singer

Ned Harris added: “Arthur Singer, who is also– I’m speaking of wonderful people, and how giving they were ... I couldn’t get a better teacher than Arthur. He had a complete technique, and that was watercolor. And there I, just from watching him work, you know, and asking questions, there I had a student/tutor relationship again. He was very giving and wonderful ...”

Rick Beyer, on a 2016 European tour to promote his book,The Ghost Army of World War ll, holds the original watercolor that Arthur Singer painted

Marilyn Rea Beyer

in 1944 at the exact location in Verdun.

30

BACK IN THE USA After three long years in Europe, Arthur, like millions of other GIs, returned to his beloved wife, Judy, and celebrated their love by beginning a family. Their son, Paul, the first of the Singers’ two boys, was born on April 20, 1946. Needing more room, the family moved from their apartment in Queens to a home they had bought in New Hyde Park, NY on the G.I. Bill. Singer commuted daily to New York City, where he had resumed his position as art director at Ben Sackheim Advertising. He set up his studio in their small attic, hoping that freelance illustration would supplement his advertising income. He had a loving partner in his wife, a baby boy and a good job. By 1948, while working for a year at Sudler & Hennessy on the Lederle Labs account, he finally got the chance to do some animal illustration. It was an opportunity that he gladly took.

Vacation time was often spent in upstate New York with their friends George and Eleanor Fox, Lou and Anne Dorfsman, Milt and Beverly Pedolski or Herb and Sylvia Lubalin, all close friends from the Cooper Union days. There, they relaxed, playing tennis, handball or going boating. They enjoyed each other’s company, cementing bonds of friendship that would last throughout their lives.

Judy Singer

Returning to Sackheim’s in 1949, he art-directed a variety of accounts, including Burlington Mills, Playtex and National Insurance. Their second son, Alan, was born on June 19, 1950. With a recently purchased dark blue 1950 Dodge automobile for his family of four, life was pretty good for the Singers. Arthur and Judy’s sons Paul (left) and Alan (right) playing with the beagle puppy that Arthur had bought for his boys. Not having had a dog before, it never occurred to anyone to housebreak it. At a year old, the beagle was given to a farm, much to the relief of the parents.

(opposite) Judy Watercolor on paper c. 1946 Post-war Collection of Paul Singer

Paul as a newborn Watercolor on paper April/May 1946 Collection of Paul Singer

33

5

W ildlife Illustrator “In 1956, I received an assignment from The American Home magazine to design bird prints for a center insert. It became the assignment that cleared the path for me to become a full-time wildlife artist.” — Arthur Singer

FIRST SUCCESS By the early 1950s, Arthur Singer was already a successful art director. Although he was conscious of the fact that advertising was not his “real” calling, with a family to support, his job had to take precedence. Advertising entailed long hours, and ad campaigns were a grueling business for creative teams. Sackheim’s shop was especially known for its all-nighters. Frequently exhausted, Arthur took free-lance illustration assignments to keep to his goal of becoming a wildlife artist. Deeply confident in his ability, he believed that his “break” would come before too long. After several years of small successes, he was asked by Jerome Snyder, a friend from Cooper Union who had recently become the art director of Sports Illustrated (when it was an outdoors magazine), to illustrate an article about bird plumages by Dr. Robert Cushman Murphy, Curator of Ornithology at the Museum of Natural History. The cover illustration, conceived with Snyder, was of a tree filled with common bird species that appeared in the May 1955 issue of Sports Illustrated. The article was a surprising success. Working with Jerome, Singer illustrated several other articles, including the vanishing big game of North America, a family tree of 119 dog breeds, and North American bears. Sports Illustrated became a stepping-stone to new clients, including Field & Stream and later, the Reader’s Digest.

Judy Singer

The spot illustrations, done for a leather company, were executed in the late 1940s after Arthur had returned to advertising.

Arthur Singer at his home in New Hyde Park, about 1949. (Overleaf) American Birds cover illustration for Sports Illustrated, May 1955 Collection of Paul Singer

Collection of Paul Singer

36

At home, Arthur was a loving father who never raised his voice to either of his sons. Judy, on the other hand, was the family disciplinarian. In the Singer family, both sons lovingly called their father Artie, the nickname all his many friends had always used. And since no one, let alone Arthur, ever objected to this, he became known as Artie to everyone. After the Singers moved to Jericho in 1957, their home became a place that both sons’ friends enjoyed visiting. Not surprisingly, none had ever met a wildlife artist before. At the Singers’ home, jazz or the blues was always playing—Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Leadbelly or Robert Johnson. In their own homes, the music was usually popular American fare such as Perry Como, Patti Page, or Frank Sinatra. The Singer home was clearly different. Lawrence Grobel, noted author and interviewer and a frequent visitor to Arthur’s home remembered those visits, in his book, You Show Me Yours: “Jericho was a very unique place to grow up: it was safe ... friends were easy to make, and I got to glimpse my future when I entered the home of my friend Paul Singer, whose father, Arthur Singer, was a freelance artist who worked at home. Until I met Arthur I thought all fathers got into their cars and battled the Long Island Expressway or Northern State Parkway to go to work. Here was a man who sat at his desk, smoked a pipe, and drew birds for a living. The more I visited the Singer family, the more I got to understand the life of an artist. And I was lucky because Mr. Singer, whom we all called Artie, was not a temperamental artist. He was calm and easygoing; he had interesting things to say, and was interested in what I had to say, which wasn’t much when I was eleven years old. But as I continued to see him and his wife Judy over the years, I found that just being around them elevated my conversation and my imagination ... going to see Artie and Judy was always special.”

119 Recognized Dog Breeds Sports Illustrated 1955 Three page foldout illustrated chart Collection of Alan Singer

37

Family photo

Arthur Singer and his wife birdwatching in the late 1950s.

As Arthur’s reputation grew, he began to receive more important assignments. In 1955, the World Book Encyclopedia, seeking artists to illustrate a large color section on birds, chose Singer and Athos Menaboni as their two illustrators. Arthur illustrated eleven pages on birds that brought his work to the attention of other magazines and art directors. The most important of these was The American Home, which contacted him in early 1956 about illustrating a project they had been planning. In the 1950s, The American Home was a taste-maker with a large circulation. Housewives bought it for ideas on modern décor and home furnishing. He did not know it yet, but this assignment was to become a huge success, bringing his work to millions of people and several important book publishers. The American Home assignment entailed creating an attractive set of eight state bird prints that could be framed for home decoration. Printed on a heavy paper stock easily removed from the magazine, they fit well into traditional décor. Magazines sold out at the newsstands. To meet the exceptional demand, an elegantly packaged portfolio was made available by mail order for $3.98. Over the next decade, about fourteen million of these portfolios were sold, unheard of in 1956! Sales exceeded the magazine’s wildest expectations and pointed to a new interest in wildlife prints. Singer was invited to appear on television for his first interview, one of several appearances he would make over his career. The prints became classics and were sold by the magazine for many years, establishing Arthur Singer’s reputation as a leading illustrator of birds. Even today, sixty years after publication, dozens of Singer’s Bird Prints can be found on eBay every day of the week. 38

Great Egret Reader’s Digest March 1958 Collection of Paul Singer

Pheasant Field & Stream for Winchester September 1958 Collection of Paul Singer

Cardinals The American Home magazine July 1956 Condé Nast

Baltimore Orioles and Chickadees The American Home magazine September 1957 Condé Nast

Goldfinches The American Home magazine May 1957 Condé Nast

Pheasant, Quail & Ruffed Grouse The American Home magazine November 1956 Condé Nast

Eastern & Mountain Bluebirds The American Home magazine September 1956 Condé Nast

Western Meadowlarks The American Home magazine July 1957 Condé Nast

Mockingbirds The American Home magazine January 1957 Condé Nast

Between creating his illustrations and an advertising career, Arthur began composing a series of wildlife paintings for himself. These pictures, vignetted against a white background, were heavily influenced by both J.J. Audubon and Jacques Barraband’s work. They were the first steps in the development of a painting style that he would begin to resolve in the volume, Birds of Europe, fifteen years later. But in the 1950s, frequent deadlines prevented him from devoting the time necessary to develop an identifiable style of his own. As such, these works are a hybrid that lie somewhere between illustration and painting. But among these earlier works, Brown Pelicans (right), is considered by many to be among his finest early compositions.

White-throated Toucans Gouache on board c. 1955 Collection of Paul Singer

Brown Pelicans Gouache on board c. 1958 Collection of Rachel Baker August

6

Birds of the World “Arthur’s fine, meticulous painting is the best evidence of the years of intense self-discipline he has devoted toward reaching the goal he set for himself...making each of his paintings...stand on its own as art.” — Dr. Oliver Austin Jr.

(Overleaf) Antbirds & Ant Shrikes Birds of the World Gouache on board c. 1959 Collection of Paul Singer

THE GOLDEN YEARS There was no specific turning point in Arthur Singer’s career as a wildlife artist, but his association with Golden Press was to prove decisive. It began after Golden had contracted him to illustrate a cut and paste children’s book on birds. Impressed by what he saw of the artist’s work, Golden’s editor, Herbert Zim, decided to follow the stamp book with a large-format children’s book called The Giant Golden Book of Birds, written by ornithologist and writer, Robert Porter Allen. After seeing Singer’s layouts and dynamic illustrations, the team at Golden was convinced it had something with considerably more potential than merely a children’s book on birds. Dr. Oliver Austin Jr., author of Birds of the World, remembered a call from Herbert Zim, one morning in 1958. He related it this way: “How would you like to like to write a book on birds of the world illustrated by Arthur Singer?” “Perhaps I might but who is Arthur Singer?” I asked naively. “He’s a fella in New York who’s been painting a few birds for us at Golden. Since then, he’s been making some double-page spreads for another juvenile book, The Giant Golden Book of Birds, with your friend Robert Cushman Murphy looking over his shoulder. I think they are much too good for a juvenile. Why don’t you come (to the Florida Keys) and see them?” “So I went. And then I saw the first spreads–they included those of the albatrosses, gulls, pheasants, owls and toucans as I recall it–and all I could say was: Where, oh where has this fine talent been hiding all these years? (Sentiments) which many people here and abroad were to echo after our Birds of the World was published in 1961.” —Dr. Oliver Austin Jr., Florida Naturalist (April, 1966)

Quetzals, Trogons and Kingfishers Birds of the World Gouache on board c. 1959 Collection of Paul Singer

Planning and design began in the late 1950s, and four years were necessary to complete the illustrations. All 27 orders and 155 families of birds were represented. In his meticulous research, Arthur consulted the staff of the Department of Ornithology at the Museum of Natural History in New York City on a regular basis. Curators Dean Amadon, Tom Gilliard, John Bull and others worked closely with him to make certain that every species he illustrated was scientifically accurate in every detail.

Arthur Singer, Oliver Austin Jr. and Senator George Smathers in Gainesville, Florida in 1966.

Page after page, the compositions for Birds of the World are remarkably beautiful. Singer designed both the front and back covers, chose type fonts, and even painted its distribution maps. It was designed so that the text could drop into pre-planned spaces, with both text and pictures flowing seamlessly. After publication in 1961, it sold well into six figures and was translated into eight languages. Today, it is regarded as a classic by ornithologists, and one of the most definitive books on birds ever written, with a text still considered current even fifty-five years after its publication. Birds of the World stands as Austin's and Singer’s magnum opus. It established Singer’s reputation as one of the world’s finest bird artists. Austin said of his friend and colleague: 52

Singer celebrated the book’s success by taking a month-long safari to East Africa in 1962, visiting Kenya and Tanzania. He spent several weeks photographing wildlife at Lake Natron and the Ngorongoro crater, and observed from flight several million flamingos at Lake Magadi. He wrote in his journal: “I’ll add my voice to those ... who claim that one of the most awe-inspiring sights in the bird world – is a vast flamingo colony. The birds I saw at Lake Magadi reached out in a long ribbon for three miles – breathtaking applies to this panorama of birds! ... I’d like to try to paint this someday …” In 1986, he finally painted the picture and entitled it Flamingo Ballet, shown in Chapter 11, page 145.

53

Hummingbirds (above) Gouache on board 1961 Collection of Alan Singer

Judy Singer

“Like most greatly gifted people, Arthur Singer is a warmly sympathetic and friendly person ... his reactions to the ... fauna and flora he portrays so magnificently, are spontaneous and open ... Arthur’s fine, meticulous painting is the best evidence of the years of application and intense self-discipline he has devoted toward reaching the goal he set for himself long ago, that of making each of his paintings reproduce nature accurately, but beautifully, so that it stands on its own as art.” —Florida Naturalist (April, 1966)

Arthur and Herbert Zim reading a postcard congratulating the authors on the publication of Birds of the World in 1961.

Lisl Steiner

The artistry displayed in Birds of the World set a high standard and was a sensation in the publishing world. Singer was invited to appear on the Today Show in 1961 with a stack of proofs to talk about and illustrate his artistic process.

Singer discusses the art of Birds of the World with host, Frank Blair on NBC’s Today Show in 1961

One of the secrets behind the illustrations for this book, and those that later followed, was the large amount of preparation involved. All the compositions were preceded by accurate pencil renderings of each subject and several detailed pastel comprehensives of the final composition. Nothing was left to chance. Arthur had an eye for creating a dynamic composition, so that each illustration is unique and unexpected – something that had not been seen before.

Birds of the World (cover) Gouache on board c. 1960 Private Collection

Birds of the World (back cover) Gouache on board c. 1960 Private Collection

Herons and Egrets (opposite) Birds of the World Gouache on board c. 1959 Private Collection

54

GOLDEN GUIDES Birds of the World was a very important milestone for the artist, and his Alma Mater, The Cooper Union, honored him in 1962 as the first recipient of its Augustus St. Gaudens medal for his achievement. That year, Golden Press began planning a book that would challenge the dominance of Roger Tory Peterson’s Guide to the Birds. Peterson is credited with inventing the modern field guide in 1934 and his guide had virtually owned the space (along with the 1946 Pough/Eckelberry Guide) for several decades.

The Augustus St. Gaudens medal presented

Golden assembled a team for the project that included editor Herbert Zim, and eminent ornithologists Dr. Chandler Robbins and Dr. Bertel Bruun, who had authored over three hundred scientific papers and several important books on birds. Both men were widely recognized and members of numerous ornithological societies. Arthur Singer was chosen as the book’s illustrator. In the new guide, Singer was required to paint more than 650 bird species, as well as seasonal plumages for each species, immatures, vagrants and accidentals. When asked about the effort it took to illustrate the guidebook, the artist responded:

to Arthur Singer by the Cooper Union in 1962 was designed by Lou Dorfsman, the world-renowned graphic designer, with his friend Arthur in mind. Both had graduated in the Class of 1939. Augustus St. Gaudins medal Bronze Collection of Paul Singer

“By no stretch of the imagination could I say that the Golden Field Guide, Birds of North America, was fun to do. Unlike Birds of the World, the guide gave me little creative freedom. As it turned out, it is probably the most important job I ever did.” –From an interview at the Jericho Public Library, 1978. What made Birds of North America such a departure from the other guides was the inclusion of the typical habitats characteristic of each species. It is taken for granted today, but before Birds of North America, species were almost always shown in static positions, with no visual clue as to their habits or habitats. Species descriptions were often located in another section of the book rather than opposite the illustrations. Birds of North America changed that. The new guide added range maps, silhouettes identifying a bird’s typical attitude, and sonograms (birdsong patterns) opposite the illustrations. This visual information made the guide much easier and faster to use in the field. After its publication in 1966, it set the standard for most of the guides that have followed. A perennial bestseller, sales of which have long-since surpassed six million, it is still selling after more than fifty years in print. With the field guide completed, Golden had lined up another decade of book projects for Arthur. He dedicated himself to the task, beginning preparations for The Hamlyn Guide to Birds of Britain and Europe in 1967. 56

Judy Singer

Arthur Singer with his Nikon Long Lens in the mid-1960s.

Woodpeckers Birds of North America Gouache on board c. 1964–1966 Eddie Woodin Collection

57

The original edition of Birds of North America (below). Much thought and preparation went into planning the guide’s cover. Arthur drew several dozen different thumbnails in pastel, and narrowed his ideas down to the best three. The final choice used the three bunting species that are shown on the cover.

The first edition of Birds of North America was published in 1966. The thumbnail sketch of the cover is shown above (left) with the final illustration on the right. Collection of Alan Singer

Rosy Finches Birds of North America Gouache on board c. 1964–1966 Eddie Woodin Collection

58

The revised edition of Birds of North America was published in 1983. Collection of Paul Singer

Large Owls Birds of North America Gouache on board c. 1964–1966 Eddie Woodin Collection

59

Arctic Loons Birds of Europe Oil on canvas c. 1967–1968 Private Collection

BIRDS OF EUROPE Birds of Europe was begun as a collaboration between ornithologist/author Dr. Bertel Bruun and Arthur Singer. After two years of intense work, it was published in 1969. The Hamlyn Guide to Birds of Britain and Europe, the guidebook, came out the following year. Birds of Europe was a turning point in Singer’s art. While most of his previous work was illustration, Birds of Europe was designed to include twenty-six full-page paintings of birds in their habitats. About half were full paintings in oil on canvas. The others were compositions vignetted against a white ground. So, in a sense, the book was a hybrid. In later years, the artist was critical of the achievement, faulting some of his paintings for being uneven, and for using these two very different approaches. But he had turned a corner that would later result in some of his finest work. Both The Hamlyn Guide to Birds of Britain and Europe and Birds of Europe met with instant success when they were released by Golden Press/Hamlyn Publishing Group in the United States and Europe. Singer was invited for an audience with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip at Windsor Castle in 1970, at which he presented Prince Philip with the oil painting, Goshawk published in the book. The following year, Arthur and Dr. Bruun travelled to Scandinavia to attend audiences with the kings of both Sweden and Norway.

Goshawk Birds of Europe Oil on canvas c. 1971 Collection of Michael Cantwell

His work had also begun to gain further recognition. After becoming the first recipient of the Augustus St. Gaudens medal in 1962, he had been made Arthur and his wife, Judy present Prince Philip with the painting Goshawk, from Birds of Europe, in 1970. Arthur completed a second version of this painting (shown above) the following year.

61

a fellow in the American Ornithologist’s Union, an honor usually reserved for scientists. The Society of Illustrators awarded Singer their Citation of Merit in 1974, and in 1977, Birds of the World earned the silver medal at the International Book Fair in Leipzig, Germany. For his own paintings, Arthur often returned to his favorite subjects: herons and egrets, hawks and eagles, cranes, loons and pelicans. Snowy Owls (below) were particular favorites and he could often be seen on a winter’s day, with his long lens in hand, photographing them at Jones Beach, Long Island. Beginning in the late 1960s, Singer composed at least ten oil paintings of snowy owls including his earliest, shown here, from the volume of Birds of Europe. But perhaps the finest painting, Snowy Owl at Day’s End, painted in the 1980s, is now in the collection of the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin.

Great Black-backed Gulls Birds of Europe Oil on canvas c. 1967–1968 Collection of Paul Singer

Snowy Owls (right) Birds of Europe Oil on board c. 1967–1968 Private Collection

62

Jays and Magpie Birds of Europe Gouache on board c. 1967–1968 Private Collection

Black Grouse in Courtship Birds of Europe Oil on canvas c. 1967–1968 Estate of Arthur Singer

Common Eiders Birds of Europe Oil on canvas c. 1967–1968 Private Collection

65

Puffins Birds of Europe Oil on board c. 1967–1968 Private Collection

66

“I have so many vivid memories of the family vacations we took during my childhood. They were experiences that opened my eyes to the adventure of travel and gave me a deep appreciation of nature. We hiked in the mountains of Wyoming and Montana spotting Golden Eagles, Mountain Bluebirds and Magpies. We bird-watched in Maine, where I saw Crossbills for the first time. I knew that as an adult, I would continue these adventures and I did so as soon as I owned my first automobile. Over the years, I have explored many of our National Parks and as a professional graphic designer, even worked for years designing interpretive signage for the National Park Service and State Park systems. This was the result of my interest in nature that began with the trips we took with my Dad so many years ago.”

Alan Singer

Between projects, Arthur took the family to wild places where they could all experience nature in America’s national parks. He had no time for, or interest in, tourist destinations, so when making vacation plans, wilderness, bird watching and location were the important criteria, which is why these vacations were so special. Both sons remember trips to the Adirondacks, Maine, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah. Paul says:

Singer was accomplished “in the field,” traveling and bird watching on five continents. At home, he used his free time to get into the “field” at the Muttontown Preserve, West End Beach, Jamaica Bay or Garvies Point, Long Island where he would take a few hours in any season to walk, observe, and photograph.

Red-fronted Geese Birds of Europe Oil on board c. 1967–1968 Manougian Collection

67

Singer traveled to the Cota Donaña in Spain and the Camargue in southern France to observe and photograph birds as he worked on the field guide, Birds of Europe.

Common and Barrow’s Goldeneyes and Harlequin Ducks (above) Old World Finches (right) Birds of Europe Gouache on board c. 1967–1968 Estate of Arthur Singer

Three pages from the guide Birds of Europe, published today by Philips as Birds of Britain and Europe. It remains in print after 46 years, although some plates have been extensively revised by other artists.

Gannets and Pelicans Birds of Europe Gouache on board c. 1967–1968 Estate of Arthur Singer

In 1970, Arthur completed the revision of the Golden Nature Guide to Birds, the dollar guide edited by Herbert Zim and first published in the 1950s. But the re-make of the guide, a perennial best seller, was shelved when a legal dispute between Zim and the publisher could not be resolved. The lawsuit went on for more than a decade. With the book complete but the project in limbo, there was little Singer could do about the royalties he had hoped to earn from his efforts. It was the first of several books he illustrated that would remain unpublished. Families of Birds, another Golden book, was published in 1971. Written by Dr. Oliver Austin Jr. and edited by Herbert Zim, this guide to bird classification included 208 families of birds, 36 known only by fossil remains. Shortly after its publication, Arthur also completed the illustrations for James Bond’s (of 007 fame) Birds of the West Indies with fellow artists, Don Eckelberry and Earle Poole.

Grosbeaks Golden Nature Guide to Birds (unpublished) Gouache on board c. 1969 Collection of Eddie Woodin

Throughout the sixties and seventies, Arthur and his wife took numerous trips to exotic, wild places including Arizona, Alaska, the Rockies, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Yucatan, Guatemala, Surinam, Costa Rica, Spain, France, Greece, Egypt, Israel, and Turkey. On several bird watching trips he was accompanied by his colleague Dr. Bertel Bruun or his good friend John Bull. He also traveled with one of his closest friends, Don Richard Eckelberry.

Sea Ducks Golden Nature Guide to Birds (unpublished) Gouache on board c. 1969 Collection of Paul Singer

70

Don and Ginny Eckelberry on Monhegan Island, Maine, on a vacation with the Singers.

Paul Singer

The Eckelberrys lived in Babylon, New York, in a carriage house they had converted into their home. It had an enormous studio where both artists worked on projects while caged parrots, tropical plants and calypso music lent the studio a touch of the exotic. Arthur and his family frequently spent afternoons at Don and Ginny’s that usually turned into late evenings. Conversations lasted for hours. Don made his home a salon for bird artists and ornithologists from around the world. His legendary parties often involved a Trinidadian steel drum band if it was in summer, with lobsters, seafood and lots of rum. With a glass of rum in one hand and a White Owl cigar usually in the other, Don would hold forth with anecdotes about his travels, bird painting or current politics (the Vietnam War was raging), while Ginny attended to the meal. Fellow artists Guy Coheleach, Al Gilbert, Guy Tudor, John Yrizarry, Manabu Saito, Ted Lewin, Arthur and others would usually be on hand to trade stories about their own projects and travels. Don’s world was as stimulating as it was engaging.

Arthur Singer

Arthur had first met Don’s wife, Virginia, at Ben Sackheim Advertising, where they both had worked in the 1950s. The two couples soon became close friends, socializing, birding, and even vacationing together. Arthur admired Don’s bird art, as did everyone in the field. An outstanding artist and bird-watcher since his youth, Don Eckelberry is credited by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology with the last universally accepted sighting of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in 1944. On a trip to Trinidad and Tobago in 1965, Arthur and Don stayed at Asa Wright’s home, years before Don became instrumental in transforming it into the renowned Asa Wright Nature Center.

Arthur Singer and Don Eckelberry (above) at a Frame House Gallery promotional tour of the Bronx Zoo (c. 1977). Artists included Arthur Singer, Don Eckelberry, Ray Harm, Anne O. Dowden, Richard Evans Younger, Charles Fracé and Charlie

Alan Singer

Harper

71

Don Eckelberry, Roger Tory Peterson, and Arthur Singer in Ithaca, New York in the mid-1970s.

ZOO ANIMALS As soon as one project had been completed, another was waiting. The Golden Nature Guide, Zoo Animals was published in 1967, part of the popular Golden Guide series that had helped build Herbert Zim’s reputation as an editor of natural history guides. It was authored by Dr. Donald Hoffmeister (Director of the Museum of Natural History and Professor of Zoology at the University of Illinois) and illustrated by Arthur Singer.

Zoo Animals (cover art) Gouache on board c. 1966 Estate of Arthur Singer

Black Rhinoceros Zoo Animals Gouache on board c. 1966 Estate of Arthur Singer

Until this point, Arthur’s fame as an illustrator of birds had dictated the kinds of projects that Golden Press developed for him. Zoo Animals finally gave him an opportunity to demonstrate his mastery of a much broader range of animals, in fact, the entire collection of the Bronx Zoo. Within Zoo Animals’ 160 pages, the artist illustrated subjects that he hadn’t had a chance to draw since his early days at the zoo: cats, antelopes, rhinos, hippos, kangaroos, and other big game. During the project, he frequently returned to the Bronx Zoo to sketch his subjects from life again and re-familiarize himself with their character and postures. The book was a labor of love. Its dynamic compositions and his mastery of anatomy made it a joy to browse as well as a commercial success. It was stocked in zoo gift shops throughout the Americas and Europe and at the Bronx Zoo, much to the delight of the artist and the publisher. Although Arthur’s reputation had been built on a series of breakthrough projects such as The American Home Bird Prints, Birds of the World and Birds of North America, it didn’t prevent him from painting mammals if he wished to. He certainly did not want to be typecast. His love for the cat family, for example, dated to his teen years and he composed and painted a number of works depicting lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars throughout his life.

Red Deer and Moose Zoo Animals Gouache on board c. 1966 Estate of Arthur Singer

Giraffes Zoo Animals Gouache on board c. 1966 Estate of Arthur Singer

Gorillas (opposite) Zoo Animals Gouache on board c. 1966 Estate of Arthur Singer

Cock-of-the-rock, Peruvian Cock-of-the-rock, Saffron Finch and Cardinal Zoo Animals Gouache on board c. 1966 Estate of Arthur Singer

Amphibians (above) Zoo Animals Gouache on board c. 1966 Estate of Arthur Singer

Cobras (right) Zoo Animals Gouache on board c. 1966 Estate of Arthur Singer

Old World Monkeys (left) Zoo Animals Gouache on board c. 1966 Estate of Arthur Singer

77

BIG CATS “My first and earliest passion was picturing the big cats – lions, tigers, leopards, and pumas. I still have a few of those early attempts” ɠ From an Interview at the Jericho Public Library, 1978 Big cats had fascinated the artist since his earliest visits to the zoo as a boy. In the early 1970s, several years after Zoo Animals, Golden asked Arthur to illustrate the small format Golden Nature Guide, Cats. He finally had the chance to illustrate a subject he had loved for forty years. He produced a series of small oil paintings of both wild and domestic cats. Cats was published in 1973 and inspired the artist to compose a number of larger cat paintings beginning in the mid-1970s. They total about ten works. Several were easel paintings for himself, including two large compositions of snow leopards, at least two paintings of lions, a fine watercolor painting of a leopard (below) and a painting of a Siberian tiger in the snow. And two were painted on commission for Frame House Gallery–a painting of a clouded leopard, and one of jaguars called On the Alert, both issued as limited edition prints. He would have loved to paint more, but his publisher wanted him to concentrate on bird prints. Big cats were the commercial territory of Bob Kuhn, Robert Bateman, and Guy Coheleach, while Singer was still known mostly for his birds.

Tiger study (detail) Pastel and pencil on paper c. 1936 Estate of Arthur Singer

Lioness in the Shade of a Kopje Detail (opposite) Oil on painting board Early 1980s Collection of Genesee Country Village and Museum, Mumford, New York

Leopard in the Rocks (left) Watercolor on board Mid-1980s Collection of Michael Cantwell

79

A large pastel preliminary for the painting On the Alert (above). Both phases of jaguars are pictured in this Frame House limited edition print (right). The image on the bottom, far right is another composition of jaguars. This subject had interested the artist as far back as the late 1930s. Collection of Paul Singer Study for On the Alert (above) Pastel on board c. mid-1970s Collection of Paul Singer Jaguars in two phases (right) Oil on board c. 1972 Private Collection

80

Tiger study Watercolor on paper c. early 1970s. Collection of Paul Singer

A watercolor sketch for a painting of a Siberian tiger composed in the mid-1970s. The artist changed this composition repeatedly. The final painting is seen on page 83.

81

82

Siberian Tiger in the Winter (above) Watercolor & gouache on board c. late 1970s Private Collection

Snow Leopard (left) Oil on canvas c. 1984 Estate of Arthur Singer

83

7

Life Af ter Golden After Golden Press, Arthur became the part owner of Vineyard Books. Vineyard was a brilliant but short-lived venture and after its demise, Singer focused his attention on limited-edition prints and easel painting.

After the publication of Cats in 1973, the creative team that had been at Western Publishing since the days of Birds of the World broke with the company and formed Vineyard Books. It was a brilliant, though unfortunately short-lived, venture. Four years into its operations, Vineyard’s president, Albert Leventhal, died of a massive heart attack. But during those years, Vineyard published a number of books under the Delacorte and Crown imprints, among them a few books illustrated by Arthur and members of his family—The Life of the Hummingbird, The Total Book of Houseplants, illustrated by Alan Singer and Bulbs, illustrated by Judy Singer. (Overleaf) Japanese Cranes (detail) Watercolor & gouache on board c. early 1980s Private Collection

86

The Life of the Hummingbird was written by world-renowned ornithologist, Dr. Alexander Skutch (1904–2004). It is a monograph on the life and habits of a unique family of birds that includes some of the smallest, most beautiful, and jewel-like of all bird species. Singer painted more than eighty species of hummingbirds for the book, capturing them in flight, probing for nectar, resting, and sitting on their tiny nests. His precise drawings demonstrate how hummingbirds’ wing movements affect their aerial acrobatics, ability to hover, and motion in flight. Today, stop-action photography would be used to show the same.

87

Streamertail Hummingbird (above) The Life of the Hummingbird Gouache on board 1973 Collection of Janet Scherer

Long-billed Starthroat and Purple-crowned Fairy (opposite) The Life of the Hummingbird Gouache on board 1973 Estate of Arthur Singer

Hummingbird portraits (above) The Life of the Hummingbird Gouache on board 1973 Collection of Janet Scherer 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

Rivoli’s Hummingbird Gilded Hummingbird Garnet-throated Hummingbird Chimborazo Hillstar Calliope Hummingbird Hooded Visorbearer Anna’s Hummingbird Rainbow-bearded Thornbill Wire-crested Thorntail White-vented Violet-ear Adorable Coquette

Bearded Helmetcrest, Chimborazo Hillstar,and Bearded Mountaineer (left) The Life of the Hummingbird Gouache on board 1973 Estate of Arthur Singer

88

Alexander Skutch

To research the project, Singer traveled to Costa Rica to photograph his subjects and meet the author, Alexander Skutch. Skutch had graduated from Johns Hopkins in 1938 with a Ph.D. in botany, and had lived for decades at the edge of the jungle in Panama and Costa Rica. He had became an authority on South American birds, and a legend among ornithologists. Arthur returned to the States with a deep appreciation and respect for the man whom many in the field consider to be among the greatest ornithologists of the 20th-century.

Green-backed Firecrown and Ruby-throated Hummingbird (above) The Life of the Hummingbird Gouache on board 1973 Estate of Arthur Singer

Arthur Singer in Costa Rica (above) Front cover of The Life of the Hummingbird published by Crown in 1973. (below)

Dr. Alexander Skutch (left) spent many years of his life living near the rain forest, studying its avian inhabitants and plants. He authored over forty books on birds and botany. Skutch was born Arthur Singer

in 1904 and lived to one hundred.

89

8

Unpublished Gems Birds of the Ocean Birds of the Seven Continents

BIRDS OF THE OCEAN Vineyard’s demise in 1976 halted the publication of two of Singer’s finest illustrated books, a professional setback to the artist as well as a great disappointment. Birds of the Ocean was intended to be one of only a few guides that illustrated all the world’s seabirds. It had been widely anticipated at that time and was expected to be a major contribution to the existing literature in the mid-1970s. But after the author missed a crucial deadline for delivering its text, publication had to be delayed. Dr. Oliver Austin Jr. was engaged to complete a new text, but the delay allowed an English publisher to bring its own seabird guide to market. With the turmoil that followed soon after Albert Leventhal’s death, Birds of the Ocean was abandoned. In 1989, Singer generously gifted the entire work to the Ornithology Department at the American Museum of Natural History, where it resides to this day, an unseen classic (except by the ornithologists at the AMNH) awaiting an improbable resurrection.

Albatrosses Birds of the Ocean Gouache on board c. 1973 Photograph: Matthew Shanley Department of Ornithology Archives, AMNH The four genuses of Albatross (left) 1. Wandering Albatross 2. Southern Royal Albatross Heads: Wandering Albatross Southern Royal Albatross

Two sketches of possible covers for Birds of the Ocean Watercolor on paper c.1974 Estate of Arthur Singer

(Overleaf) Proposed cover for Birds of the Ocean Watercolor on paper c. 1975. Estate of Arthur Singer

92

Crested Penguins Birds of the Ocean Gouache on board 1973 Photograph: Matthew Shanley Department of Ornithology Archives, AMNH 1. Rockhopper penguin Heads: top to bottom Fiordland Penguin Erect-crested Penguin Snares Penguin Rockhopper Penguin Macaroni Penguin Royal Penguin Yellow-eyed Penguin

Terns Birds of the Ocean Gouache on board c. 1973 Photograph: Matthew Shanley Department of Ornithology Archives, AMNH 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

South American Tern Antarctic Tern Kerguelen Tern White-cheeked Tern Aleutian Tern

Eiders Birds of the Ocean Gouache on board c. 1973 Photograph: Matthew Shanley Department of Ornithology Archives, AMNH 1. 2. 3. 4.

King Eider Common Eider Spectacled Eider Steller’s Eider

BIRDS OF THE SEVEN CONTINENTS Tinamous (above) Birds of the Seven Continents Gouache on board 1974 Estate of Arthur Singer

Birds of the Seven Continents is the second unpublished gem in the artist’s oeuvre. A Vineyard Books project, it suffered the same fate as Birds of the Ocean after the company failed. The illustrations for this book show the artist doing what he did best, and maybe better than anyone since Audubon–design compositions using birds and foliage to create dynamic tension. Each plate is a fresh arrangement, using color and posture to convey each bird’s habits and habitats. The almost jewel-like illustrations were created in miniature, (most being only 5 inches tall and 13.5 inches wide) and are a wonder to behold. While some plates have been exhibited and sold, most have never been seen, except by the artist’s sons. Today, two-thirds of the book’s one hundred ten plates are retained by his estate. Several examples from this important and unseen work are illustrated in the next few pages.

Blackbirds & Grackles (top) Birds of the Seven Continents Gouache on board 1974 Private Collection

97

Pheasants Birds of the Seven Continents Gouache on board 1974 Private Collection

Bee Eaters and Rollers Birds of the Seven Continents Gouache on board 1974 Private Collection

Manakins, Masked Tityra, and the Peruvian Cock-of-the-rock Birds of the Seven Continents Gouache on board 1974 Collection of Paul Singer

Parrots Birds of the Seven Continents Gouache on board 1974 Private Collection

9

Limited Editions “Arthur was given a free hand in deciding his subjects and he worked assiduously on larger scale works with the sole purpose of having them reproduced and sold throughout the Frame House network of galleries.” — Alan Singer

THE PRINT BUSINESS In the mid-1950s, Arthur Singer’s commission to paint a series of eight compositions featuring Bird Prints from the The American Home magazine opened the door to the era of do-it-yourself home decoration, after the portfolios surpassed all expectations and sold millions. Two decades later, when Arthur was presented with the idea of creating paintings that could be reproduced and sold in signed limited editions to a upscale collector base, he was intrigued with the possibilities. The editions were kept below a thousand prints in the hope of keeping resale values intact. Every print would be hand-signed and numbered by the artist, giving it the cachet of “collectability.” Some prints were re-marked, with the artist adding a hand-drawn bird or mammal, presumably adding more value. Frame House Gallery may not have pioneered the limitededition print, but they certainly capitalized on the concept, enlisting some of the best artists available, including Arthur’s close friends Don R. Eckelberry and Anne Ophelia Dowden, a fine botanical artist and the wife of one of Arthur’s Cooper Union instructors, Ray Dowden.

Kingfisher Pair Oil on board 1980 Private Collection

(Overleaf) Red-headed Woodpeckers Gouache on board c. late 1970s Estate of Arthur Singer

Arthur watched as the print market took off. He tried publishing his own print, Brown Pelicans (Chapter 5), but marketing it was difficult. When he received an offer from Wood Hannah, the owner of the Frame House Gallery in Louisville, Kentucky, to come down and meet the artists, Arthur accepted. He was impressed with Hannah’s business and became one of the Frame House stable of noted wildlife and botanical artists. Thus began a new chapter in his career. For the first time, he was given a free hand in deciding his subjects and worked assiduously on larger-scale works for the sole purpose of having them reproduced and sold throughout the Frame House network of galleries. From 1973 until the early 1980s, Arthur designed and painted about twentyone compositions for Frame House that were sold throughout its franchise. He was allowed to buy back his originals at cost for resale to his own collectors, as were all the artists involved. The arrangement worked exceedingly well, and some of the pictures he created are among his finest works. Although some subjects were intended as purely decorative prints, many were exceptionally fine paintings: a Kingfisher pair silhouetted against water, a long panoramic composition of dancing Japanese Cranes, a pair of Peregrine Falcons on the misty Northwest Coast, and several other fine compositions, including the Red-tailed Hawk pictured at the right.

106

Red-tailed Hawk Gouache on board c. 1979 Private Collection

BUSIER THAN EVER By the late 1970s, Arthur Singer was busier than ever, with commitments for limited edition prints, illustrations for Audubon and the National Geographic, revisions to his field guides, private commissions, and his own paintings. In addition, Frame House expected him to produce three to four new paintings a year for publication.

As he began a series of larger paintings, lightning struck. Judy had not been feeling well for months, with disturbing dreams concerning her own mortality. Tests revealed her worst fears: she had leukemia and her prognosis was poor. In 1978, with no cure or even partial cure for her disease, the chemotherapy regimen took a terrible toll. Within a few months, Judy died. Her loss left Arthur in a state of shock and denial. A month later, his mother passed away in her late 80s. Both women, the emotional anchors of Arthur’s life, had passed. 1978 became a year of personal loss.

Arthur Singer

One interesting project at this time was a large migration map for National Geographic showing the migratory routes of dozens of birds between North America and South America. Singer later explained that it was one of the most difficult assignments that he had ever accepted. It is a compositional masterpiece, and was recently included in a book titled Maps published by Phaidon Press in 2015.

Judy Singer (1917–1978) with a litter of kittens Mid-1970s

With time and the support of his sons and friends, Arthur began to recover from his grief. The dedication he brought to his art never faltered and neither did his work schedule, which had remained constant for years. It also helped that his son, Alan had begun assisting him on a variety of projects and was often at his home at least part of every week. So, despite the loss, he emerged from a difficult year with a renewed sense of purpose. Arthur had employed Alan, a talented artist in his own right, to paint the botanical aspect of his illustrations, and to help with revisions to the field guides Birds of North America and Birds of Europe, and the book Birds of Greenland (also known as Greenland Fauna). Alan’s work blended seamlessly into whichever project they worked on. And so, for a period of nine years, Alan collaborated with his father on many illustration projects, painting part of their compositions and, when necessary, painting the birds themselves. Bird Migration Map The complete work is shown above. A detail of the map is opposite National Geographic Copyright 1979

109

NEW PRIORITIES

Paul Singer

With Golden Press a memory, and the failure of Vineyard Books, projects that Arthur had anticipated illustrating, such as the proposed Kingfishers of the World, were not to be. And as his colleagues from Vineyard began to retire, he fretted about being forgotten. Although circumstances had changed, it may have been for the better. His book royalties were good and that allowed him the freedom to create paintings he had been thinking about for years. Both sons encouraged him in this endeavor. During the period between 1979 and mid-1989, Singer painted many of the estimated 125 larger paintings he produced during his career.

Arthur Singer at the Asa Wright Nature Center in Trinidad in 1980. He was accompanied on his twelve-day painting seminar by both sons.

Channel-billed Toucans (detail, opposite) Gouache & watercolor on board Private Collection

In 1979 and again in 1980, Arthur took an opportunity to lead a bird-painting seminar at the Asa Wright Nature Center in Trinidad. It was attended by a group of artists from the States and both sons. Paul remembers: “Our trip to the Asa Wright Nature Center was the first time I had been to a cloud forest. To hear the jarring call of bellbirds every morning, see the amazing variety of colorful tanagers, Channel-billed Toucans a hundred yards from the Center, or the Scarlet Ibises in Caroni Swamp, was an amazing experience. I counted 175 species of birds during that trip, one I’ll never forget.” The group also included two young bird artists, David Allen Sibley and John Anderton. Both had enrolled in the seminar to paint, and for what they might learn from the artist. The group drew mist-netted birds from life for a week and birded in the cloud forests of the Arima Valley and swamps of Caroni and Nariva. Twenty-four years later, Sibley’s own best-selling field guides, The Sibley Guides to Birds of Eastern and Western North America set a standard for comprehensiveness that few other bird guides have ever equaled. While in Trinidad, Arthur took hundreds of photographs that he later used to illustrate the article “Asa Wright and Her Tropical Forest Ark” (1987) for Audubon magazine. Audubon had originally asked Don Eckelberry to illustrate this article, knowing his affiliation with the Center. But by then, Don had retired from painting. Instead, Singer was offered the assignment. Arthur knew that his friend was sensitive about this topic, but it was a project that he couldn’t refuse. He composed a superb set of paintings of Trinidadian birds for Audubon, and Don, in anger, broke off their thirty-five-year friendship. They never spoke again until one day in 1990, when Arthur, gravely ill, was able to call to his old friend to say goodbye. The author happened to be present and remembered that call.

110

Singer chose to illustrate some of his favorite bird species in Trinidad, a few of which can be seen at or near the Asa Wright Nature Center. One of Singer’s favorite species (left) was the White-tailed Trogon. The Bluecrowned Motmots (right) are seen in Tobago.

White-tailed Trogon Pair Gouache & watercolor on board c. 1986 Private Collection

Blue-crowned Motmots (opposite) Gouache & watercolor on board c. 1986 Private Collection

White-bearded Manakins can be seen in the cloud forest often a few feet above the ground, trying to lure females to their lek, or courting ground, with an intricate set of displays. Arthur attempted to photograph them and got enough good information to compose this charming picture.

White-bearded Manakins (right) Gouache & watercolor on board c. 1986 Private Collection

Wattled Jacanas on Lily Pads (left) Gouache & watercolor on board c. 1986 Estate of Arthur Singer

Alan Singer

A GLORIOUS DECADE In 1981, the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum honored Arthur Singer’s accomplishments by selecting him to be their sixth Master Bird Artist. He joined his peers Roger Tory Peterson, Don R. Eckelberry, George Miksch Sutton, Owen Gromme and Sir Peter Scott, the earlier inductees and considered among the greatest bird artists of the 20th century.

Arthur B. Singer was the sixth recipient

Arthur was remarried in 1983 to Dale Cantwell, and their life together was comfortable. Traveling extensively, they enjoyed nature trips to the Galapagos, Peru, and Rwanda, which Arthur documented in thousands of photographs. Closer to home, they often visited friends like the Shaughnessys in Portal, Arizona and Arthur’s friend and collaborator, Dr. Oliver Austin Jr. and his wife Edythe in Gainesville, Florida.

of Leigh Yawkey Woodson’s Master Bird Artist medal in 1981, joining Owen Gromme, George Miksch Sutton, Roger Tory Peterson, Don R. Eckelberry and Sir Peter Scott.

Arthur was very close to his family, especially his sons, Paul and Alan, and their wives, Janet and Anna. They spoke almost daily. He was proud that his sons had become accomplished artists, and took joy in his two grandsons, David and Nathaniel, whom he saw at frequent family gatherings. During the 1980s, Singer illustrated the last three books of his professional career: Greenland Fauna, State Birds, and the children’s book Animals A to Z (which sold over 700,000 copies). He had two successful exhibits at New York City’s Hammer Galleries, and another at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. He was also commissioned by Franklin Porcelain to design two sets of porcelain plates (24 in all). At the same time, his vision problems were increasing. Although surgery proved successful on the cataracts, the more serious eye problems were related to glaucoma. Even with medication, his condition began to worsen around the mid-1980s. It became difficult for him to maintain a 12-hour work schedule and he began to rely increasingly on Alan to complete many projects.

The Audubon Society’s Hal Borland award was presented to Singer in 1985 for his contribution to the appreciation and protection of nature.

In 1985, the Audubon Society presented Singer with the Hal Borland Award for the lasting contribution his art had made to the understanding, appreciation, and protection of nature. But perhaps the decade’s greatest honor was being invited by the U.S. Postal Service a few years earlier to illustrate a set of commemorative stamps to be called The Birds and Flowers of the Fifty States.

Singer (left) photographing at the Muttontown Preserve, a place where he often went to birdwatch and to get ideas for paintings.

117

10

State Birds & Flowers “We worked together on a series of first day covers for stamp collectors and then created the famous series – The Birds and Flowers of the Fifty States for the U. S. Postal Service." — Alan Singer

Dale Cantwell

A NEW MILESTONE

Arthur, Postmaster General William F. Bolger and Alan at the 1982 presentation of the State Birds and Flowers commemorative sheet.

(Overleaf) Cover of the United States Postal Service: The 1982 Fifty State Bird and Flowers Mint Set Collection of Paul Singer

When the U.S. Postal Service asked Singer to illustrate a set of fifty official state bird and flower stamps, they had no idea it would become one of the largest selling commemorative sheets the Postal Service had ever issued. They knew only that the artist would deliver a set of bird designs of the highest caliber. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that Arthur enthusiastically accepted. He planned to design and paint the art in a larger format size of 8” tall and 4.5” wide, with his son, Alan, painting the botanical subjects—flowers, branches, pine cones, etc. This would allow them to deliver the project in less than a year. The prior year, the Singers had designed fifty first-day covers on the same subject for the Unicover Corporation. Over the year, Arthur and Alan designed and painstakingly illustrated the fifty state birds and flowers. Design began with a series of sketches for each stamp to create a strong vertical composition. After getting the Postal Service’s approval, each final illustration was then painted. 120

State Birds and Flowers ©1982 United States Postal Service. All Rights Reserved. Used with Permission.

121

Each one of the fifty designs is unique, although some of the birds are the official state birds of multiple states, such as the cardinal (7), meadowlark (6), mockingbird (5), goldfinch (3), robin (3), chickadee (2) Eastern Bluebird (2) and the Mountain Bluebird (2). The stamps were enthusiastically received by the public. 500 million sheets, or over 25 billion State Birds and Flowers stamps were sold. In addition, the Post Office printed an elaborate collector’s edition hard cover book and a soft cover booklet that accompanied each specially-packaged mint set. Both artists were invited to be interviewed on Charles Kuralt’s CBS Sunday morning television show. The State Birds and Flowers stamps brought the Singers’ work to a national audience. Several years later, the original art from the State Birds and Flowers project and art created for a follow-up book, State Birds (E. P. Dutton, 1986) opened at the Smithsonian Institution where it was exhibited for five months, and seen by an estimated two hundred thousand people. The pastel rough of the California Quail, California’s state bird, (above). The final illustration is seen on the opposite page. 1981 Collection of Alan Singer

Front and back cover of State Birds (right) illustrated in 1986 by Arthur and Alan Singer Lodestar Books, a division of E. P. Dutton. Private Collection

California California Quail and the California Poppy Arthur Singer & Alan Singer U.S. Postal Service

Oregon Western Meadowlark and the Oregon Grape Arthur and Alan Singer U.S. Postal Service

Alabama Yellowhammer and Camellia U.S. Postal Service New Mexico Roadrunner and Yucca flower U.S. Postal Service

Georgia Brown Thrasher and Cherokee Rose U.S. Postal Service Texas Mockingbird and Bluebonnet U.S. Postal Service South Dakota Pheasant and Pasqueflower U.S. Postal Service South Carolina Carolina Wren and Jessamine U.S. Postal Service

11

At the Easel “Wildlife painting should not be a slavish imitation of photography. A realistic portrayal of the bird in its native habitat is necessary, but design and composition should play a major role…” — Arthur Singer

THE PAINTING GALLERY

Ring-necked Pheasants at Muttontown Perserve Oil on canvas c. 1981 Collection of Dr. Michael Howe and Mrs. Natalia Howe

(Overleaf) Herons & Egrets in the Keys Oil on board c. 1980s Collection of Celia Taylor

After executing compositions for Frame House Gallery, Arthur felt that he had only begun to understand the medium of oil on canvas. Beginning as early as 1979, as he devoted more of his time to painting original compositions, his ambition grew. During his final decade, Singer painted the majority of his larger worksɠiconic images of birds as he had seen them. Because the research and preparation time for each picture was considerable, he produced only about one painting a month. Almost all recorded scenes he had witnessed or photographed with a few exceptions–the painting of a snow leopard and the jaguars in On the Alert, both that he had photographed at the zoo. Fortunately, he had enough finished work that when Hammer Galleries of New York City invited him to hold a one-person retrospective in the Fall of 1982, he was able to accept the offer. In the months prior to the exhibit, he painted several large paintings that were sold before the show’s opening: a large painting of Scarlet Ibis in Caroni Swamp, a superb painting of Roseate Spoonbills, and a vertical painting of two Bald Eagles at their nest. The exhibit coincided with the release of the State Birds and Flowers stamps, and the timing proved perfect. Hammer sold several of Singer’s finest paintings for over $25,000 apiece, which in 1982 was considered an exceptional price for a bird painting. It was probably the high point of his exhibition career, and certainly the most successful. A second Hammer exhibit followed in 1984. Afterwards, he continued to exhibit annually at Caumsett State Park’s Environmental Center and at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum. Although he was an avid photographer, with some of his best photographs published in the book Rare and Exotic Birds by Robert Cushman Murphy, Arthur used photographs as a reference tool to study positions he wanted to use in paintings. He never considered his photographs to be art. After examining a group of images, he would select the position that he wanted to paint. As he explained in an interview at the Jericho Public Library in 1978: “Nature is never static. If you watch wildlife through binoculars you can see multitudes of happenings, and with my camera ( a motorized Nikon with a Novaflex lens mounted to a wired gunstock ) I can catch as many as four shots per second...movements or attitudes that are short-lived...like birds just landing or cocking their wings...” He added: “Wildlife painting should not be an imitation of photography. A realistic portrayal of the bird in its native habitat is necessary, but design and selectivity are also very important. In creating the initial composition of a painting, I spend a great deal of time on preparatory sketches before I decide on the one (position) that most successfully combines both aspects (of realism and design).”

129

Bald Eagle Pair Oil on canvas 1981 Private Collection

Singer loved red rock country and the

Golden Eagle in Red Rock Country Oil on board Mid-1980s Estate of Arthur Singer

area better known as the Four Corners, where ground cover is stripped down to the exposed red rock. He vacationed there many times, and occasionally photographed Golden Eagles above the sagebrush. This painting is set in Monument Valley, on the Arizona–Utah border and was inspired by one such sighting.

130

Bald Eagle at Glacier Bay Oil on canvas 1984 Estate of Arthur Singer

Great Blue Heron Gouache and watercolor 1982 Nelkin Collection

Great Blue Heron and Louisiana Heron in a Mangrove Swamp Gouache and watercolor 1983 Estate of Arthur Singer

Skimmers at Jones Beach Oil on canvas c. early 1980s Estate of Arthur Singer

A Skimmer at West End Beach Oil on canvas Early 1980s Estate of Arthur Singer

135

African Crowned Cranes Oil on board 1983 Private Collection

136

White-fronted Kingfisher Gouache on board 1986 Estate of Arthur Singer

Scarlet Ibis Flying to Roost Oil on canvas c. mid-1980s Private Collection

Caroni Swamp at Sundown– Scarlet Ibis (opposite, detail) Oil on canvas 1981 Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum

139

This is one of ten paintings of Snowy Owls the artist is known to have completed, but one of the few paintings ever executed with a palette knife. It captures the quick but silent flight of the owl, seen by the artist late one afternoon at West End Beach, on the South Shore of Long Island.

Snowy Owl Taking Flight Oil on canvas Late 1970s Estate of Arthur Singer

140

Snowy Owl at Day’s End Gouache on board 1988 Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum

Peregrine Falcons in the Morning Mist Oil on board 1979 Collection of Alan Singer

Swallow-tailed Kites in the Everglades Watercolor & gouache on board 1982 Collection of Paul Singer

Roseate Spoonbills at Ding Darling Oil on canvas Mid-1980s Estate of Arthur Singer

144

Flamingo Ballet Oil on canvas 1979 Collection of James Rodgers

Harpy Eagles in Surinam Oil on canvas c. 1970s Estate of Arthur Singer

146

Quetzals in Guyana Watercolor on board 1982 Collection of Michael Cantwell

Collared Aracaris – A Tropical Pair Watercolor & gouache on board 1987 Private Collection

Toco Toucan Oil on board 1984 Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum

149

Great Gray Owl Oil on Canvas 1982 Eddie Woodin Collection

Golden Eagle Landing Watercolor on board 1983 Estate of Arthur Singer

Japanese Cranes Dancing Gouache on board 1985 Estate of Arthur Singer Pheasants at Muttontown Reserve (opposite, detail) Oil on Canvas 1985 Estate of Arthur Singer

153

Vulturine Guineafowl Gouache on board 1987 Private Collection

OBSERVING NATURE

Choosing a scene to paint, the artist would take out his watercolor block, brushes and paints, and begin the composition. Sometimes his sons were also there painting beside him. Today, both are also accomplished watercolorists. What Singer learned about the landscape he incorporated into his larger compositions, and that may be why this aspect of his studio paintings appears to be so closely observed. Examples of several of these field watercolors are illustrated in the following pages.

Dale Cantwell

Over his lifetime, Arthur Singer studied nature through the lens of the landscape watercolor. He loved the medium, and when visiting a new environment might spend a morning or afternoon painting an inspiring scene. Over the decades, Singer painted several hundred watercolors on location. From the early watercolors he painted in Europe during the war, to the watercolors painted in his last year, most are evocative and display an economy of brushwork with little unnecessary detail and a sureness of hand. Once Arthur began painting, his powers of concentration allowed him to maintain his focus for as long as it took to complete the picture.

Arthur in the Grand Tetons in the mid-1980s.

Lagoon Watercolor 1980 Estate of Arthur Singer

Bryce Canyon Watercolor 1982 Estate of Arthur Singer

Kauai, Hawaii Watercolor 1981 Estate of Arthur Singer

158

St. Vincent Watercolor c. 1982 Estate of Arthur Singer

159

Red Rock Country Watercolor c. 1983 Estate of Arthur Singer

160

“For eight days in 1983, Dad and I drove throughout Arizona and New Mexico, stopping to birdwatch and paint at some of the region’s most iconic locations. Our little road trip began in Tucson, where we met up with Ben Sackheim, Arthur’s old friend. It was the only time in my adult life that I spent an extended period of time with my father and a memory that I’ll always cherish.” —Paul Singer

The Chiricahuas Watercolor c. 1988 Estate of Arthur Singer

Monument Valley on the Road Trip Watercolor c. 1983 Estate of Arthur Singer

161

Percé Rock Watercolor c. 1970s Estate of Arthur Singer

Monhegan Island Watercolor c. 1985 Estate of Arthur Singer

Stormy Morning, St. Vincent (opposite) Watercolor c. 1983 Estate of Arthur Singer

163

Arnos Vale, Tobago Watercolor c. 1981 Estate of Arthur Singer

Palmetto, Arima Valley Watercolor c. 1980 Estate of Arthur Singer

164

The Pyramids at Tikal Watercolor c.1970s Estate of Arthur Singer

165

EPILOGUE After returning from a trip to southern Arizona and beginning to plan for an extended trip to Australia and New Zealand, Arthur began to feel ill. Tests revealed that he was suffering from a cancer that would require surgery and chemotherapy. A feeling of dread descended upon his family. The shock took a while to sink in. Summoning the will to continue working, Arthur composed and executed three large compositions of southwestern birds over the next several months, including a painting of the Gambel’s Quail, another of a Roadrunner, and a Red-tailed Hawk perched upon a saguaro cactus. Those were the last three pictures he would complete. After returning from a trip to New Hampshire to photograph loons, he felt his energy failing. Over a period of a few months, he worked feverishly to sign the hundreds of book plates he had illustrated years before but had left unsigned: Birds of Europe, Birds of the Ocean, Zoo Animals, Birds of Greenland, Birds of Seven Continents and others. He completed the effort, but his shaky hand is noticeable in some of his later signatures. Arthur B. Singer died in 1990 with his family gathered around him and Duke Ellington’s jazz playing in the background. The legacy that he created is enjoyed today by the millions of birdwatchers whom he had helped inform with his bird guides and magazine illustrations. But it is the sheer volume and quality of the art he produced from his lifelong love of wildlife that we are left to admire. In the twenty-five years since his death, Singer’s artwork has been displayed in many retrospective exhibits including: New York Zoological Society’s Central Park Zoo Gallery in New York City; the Wendell Gilley Museum in Southwest Harbor, Maine; the Buffalo Museum of Natural History in Buffalo, New York; Caumsett State Park’s Marshall Field Gallery on Long Island, New York; the Nippon Society in New York City; the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin; the Roger Tory Peterson Institute in Jamestown, New York and exhibits in art galleries in Nantucket, Rochester, New York and Massachusetts. Even the watercolors painted during his army years, recently seen in the documentary and book, The Ghost Army of World War II, have helped to generate a new-found interest in the artists of the 603rd Camouflage Unit.

Gambel’s Quail & Agave Watercolor on board 1989 Private Collection

BIBLIOGRAPHY Books: Audubon’s Birds of America by Roger Tory Peterson & Virginia Peterson Abbeville Press, 1981. Introduction, pp. 12, 21 Beautiful Evidence by Edward Tufte Words, Numbers, Images pp. 115–116. 2006 Birds in Art, The Masters by I. Brynildson & W. Hagge Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, 1990. pp. 52–59 In the Field Among the Feathered A History of Birders and Their Guides By Thomas Dunlap Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 148–173

Art Views and News by Gordon Muck Syracuse-Post Standard Arthur Singer by Oliver Austin, Jr. The Florida Naturalist. July 1966 Arthur Singer’s World by F. Gibbons & D. Gibbons Birders World. Feb. 1990 Arthur Singer’s World by F. Gibbons & D. Gibbons The Conservationist. Reprinted by permission Sept.–Oct. 1990 Asa Wright and her Tropical Ark by Frank Graham Jr. Audubon Magazine, May 1987. pp. 82–95

Neighbors to the Birds by F. Gibbons & D. Gibbons W.W. Norton, 1986. Pages 281–282, 301, 305

Bang! Bang!...It’s a Camera ??? Newsletter. Frame House Gallery, Inc. 1973

The Ghost Army of World War II by Rick Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles Princeton Architectural Press, 2015. Numerous citations

Bird Painters, A Rare Breed on Long Island by M. Wheat. Newsday. Jan. 24, 1977

You, Talking to Me by Lawrence Grobel CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 2016. Pages 113–116, 137

Birds in Art Catalogs Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, 1979–1990

Who’s Who in the East, 21st Edition 1986–1987

Birds of State by Alan Pistorius The Country Journal, March 1988. pp. 41–46

Publications: Partial List

Cavity Nesting Birds of North American Forests The U.S. Forest Service. 1977

A Contemporary Audubon by Ron Netsky The City Newspaper, Nov.18, 1998. pp 39–40

Close-up, U.S.A. Illustrated map of Florida National Geographic. 1973

A Wildlife Artist’s Search for Identity by Mark Wexler National Wildlife Magazine, Dec. 1980

Celebrating a Bird Artist by Alice Lukens Downeast Maine. July 1995. p. 47

A Wildlife Treasure by Roger Caras Newsday, May 17, 1981

Fly to “Bird is the Word” Life in the Finger Lakes Fall 2013 Article on Arthur Singer’s birds in art. p. 11

An Artist Spends Some Time at the Bronx Zoo New York Post, Aug. 26, 1942

Grosbeaks and Kiwis by John K. Terres New York Times, Nov. 26, 1961

Art is a Family Affair by Lawrence Grobel Newsday. Dec. 11, 1971

Interview: Arthur Singer by George Magnan Todays Art and Graphics, Vol. 29 no. 8, 1981. pp 2–6

Art That's All in the Family by Barbara Delatiner New York Times. July 2, 1977

Interview with Arthur Singer by Sheila Lesnick Jericho Library. Nov. 29, 1978

168

Loving Nature Artistically by H. Epstein Long Island Goodliving. August 1987 Master Bird Artist Arthur Singer Milwaukee Journal. Sept. 20, 1981 Montana Outdoors, Page 22 March–April 2011 (article using art from Unicover) Naturalists All by Les Line Audubon Magazine. Sept. 1985 Our Exhibition of Singer Paintings Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Fall 1970 Singer Retrospective Exhibition is Impressive Guide to Nature by Bruce A. Austin, The New York – Pennsylvannia Collector, p. 14–B, November 2012. St. Vincent 28-page color advertisement section in New Yorker Magazine. Nov. 1987 Talent Runs in the Family. Review of exhibit at Log Cabin Gallery, Cuyler, NY 1977 The Battle of the Bird Books by Joseph Kastner New York Times. April 15, 1979 The Bird Man of Long Island by Tim O’Brian Long Island Heritage. Feb. 12, 1981 The Cranes of the World Audubon Magazine, March, 1978 The Franklin News Artist’s Sketches Boost Victory Bond Sales. Winter Issue 1946. p. 3 The Inside Story of the Birds & Flowers of the 50 States by Belmont Faries Fleetwood. 1982 The Singer Stamp Series by Diane Bolz Smithsonian Magazine. Feb. 1988. p. 210 Works by an Artist-Naturalist by Malcolm Preston Newsday. August 25, 1983 Yesterday’s Island / Today’s Nantucket by Robert Frazier Review of Exhibit at Nina Hellman Gallery. Aug.1994

Illustrated Books Animals A to Z by Arthur Singer Illustrated by Arthur Singer Random House, 1987 Birds of Europe by Dr. Bertel Bruun Illustrated by Arthur Singer Hamlyn Ltd., 1969 Birds of North America by Bertel Bruun, Dr. Chandler Robbins Illustrated by Arthur Singer Golden Press, 1966 Birds of North America Beginner Guide by George Fichter Illustrated by Arthur Singer Random House, 1982 Birds of the Ocean Illustrated by Arthur Singer Vineyard Press. 1974 (unpublished) Birds of the Seven Continents Illustrated by Arthur Singer Vineyard Press. 1975 (unpublished) Birds of the West Indies by James Bond Illustrated by Arthur Singer, Eckelberry, & Poole Collins, 1974 Birds of the World by Dr. Oliver Austin, Jr. Illustrated by Arthur Singer Golden Press, 1961 Cats by George Fichter Illustrated by Arthur Singer Golden Press, 1973 Dell Encyclopedia of Dogs Illustrated by Arthur Singer Dell, 1974 Families of Birds by Dr. Oliver Austin, Jr. Illustrated by Arthur Singer Golden Press, 1971 Greenland Fauna by Finn Salomonsen Illustrated by Arthur Singer 1982 Hamlyn Guide to Birds of Britain and Europe by Dr. Bertel Bruun Illustrated by Arthur Singer Hamlyn Ltd., 1971

169

1997 Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum A Lifetime of Birds: The Art of Arthur Singer

Illustrated Books (cont’d): Giant Golden Book of Birds by Robert Porter Allen Illustrated by Arthur Singer Golden Press, 1960

1996 Francesca Anderson Gallery Arthur Singer’s Birds of America

Golden Stamp Book of Birds of the World Illustrated by Arthur Singer Golden Press, 1960 Rare and Exotic Birds by Robert Cushman Murphy Photographs by Arthur Singer Golden Press, 1962

1995 Wendell Gilley Museum The Art of Arthur Singer 1994 The Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida, Gainesville Arthur Singer: Birds of America

State Birds by Virginia Buckley Illustrated by Arthur Singer & Alan Singer E. P. Dutton, 1986

1994, 1996 Nina Hellman Gallery Arthur Singer’s Bird Paintings 1994 The Nippon Club Arthur Singer and Ukiyo-e

The Life of the Hummingbird by Alexander Skutch Illustrated by Arthur Singer Crown Publishers, 1973

1993 Florida Museum of Natural History Arthur Singer & Oliver Austin, Jr. – Birds of the World

Zoo Animals by Donald Hoffmeister Illustrated by Arthur Singer Golden Press, 1967

1993 Central Park Zoo Wildlife Center Arthur Singer: Paintings of Birds of the Tropics

Solo Exhibitions: 2017 University Gallery in the Vignelli Design Center at Rochester Institute of Technology Arthur Singer Retrospective August - October 2017 2012 Roger Tory Peterson Institute Arthur Singer Retrospective

1985–1992 Queens College Environmental Center at Caumsett State Park Arthur Singer’s Birds: Annual Exhibit 1987–1988 Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History The Singers’ State Bird & Flower Art 1987 The Cooper Union Arthur Singer’s Art

2011 Mill Art Center Arthur Singer’s Art

1985 Reuss-Audubon Gallery The Bird Art of Arthur Singer

1998 Buffalo Museum of Science Arthur Singer: Painter & Illustrator

1984 The Shaker Museum Old Chatham, New York The Bird Paintings of Arthur Singer

1998 Woolard Gallery Arthur Singer: Birds of North America

1984, 1982 The Hammer Gallery Arthur Singer’s Wildlife

1997 Germanow Coffey Gallery The Singers: State Birds

170

1984 The Brooklyn Botanic Garden The Singers' State Birds

1980 Birds National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, DC

1983 Nassau County Museum of Fine Arts The Art of Arthur Singer

1977 The Singers The Vanderbilt Museum, Centerport, NY

1981 Garvies Point Museum Arthur Singer’s Birds

1976 Bird Art Exhibition Tour Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI

1973 Cornell Labratory of Ornithology Arthur Singer

1976 Georgia Wildlife Museum of Arts & Sciences, Macon, Ga.

1972 Wichita Art Association Arthur Singer’s Birds

1975 Animals in Art Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ont.

1970 Bronx Zoo Gallery at Heads & Horns Arthur Singer: Birds of the World

1972 Ornithological Painters of North America Graham Gallery, New York City, NY

1946 Franklin Society for Homebuilding & Saving Arthur Singer: 100 Watercolors from WWII

1968–1978 Society of Animal Artists Grand Central Art Gallery, NYC

1942 Bronx Zoo Gallery at Heads & Horns The Work of Arthur Singer

1965 The Bird in Art University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

Group Exhibitions: partial 2015 Artists of the Ghost Army Salamagundi Club, NYC June 14–28 2014 Painting Birds to Save Them MassAudubon, Canton, MA 2013 Artists of the Ghost Army Edward Hopper House Nyack, NY 2005 American Birds: A Flight Through Time The Wildlife Experience. Parker, Colorado. 1978–1990 Birds in Art Annual The Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum 1986 Society of Animal Artists San Francisco Exhibition 1985 Ornithological Painters Conacher Gallery, San Francisco

171

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Authors would like to thank the following people for their kind assistance in the preparation of this book: Molly Cort for her support and guidance in bringing this book to print, and the team at RIT Press for helping to see this project through to a successful conclusion. David Wagner for his insights and the fine introduction to this book. The curatorial staff at the American Museum of Natural History for providing the critical assistance that allowed my father to depict his subjects accurately over his entire career; and to Paul Sweet, Matthew Shanley, Tom Trombone, Mary Lecroy and the Dept. of Ornithology for their assistance in providing information and photography of images from the unpublished Singer Guide, Birds of the Ocean, and for permission to reproduce four pages from that book. We would like to recognize The Wildlife Conservation Society, formerly known as the New York Zoological Society in the Bronx, New York, for providing a young artist in the 1930s with the inspiration to be a wildlife artist, and to the many curators who, over the decades, provided Arthur Singer with their professional insights and friendship. Thanks to MacMillan/St. Martin’s Press for the rights to reproduce art from the book Birds of North America: A Guide to Field Identification. Thanks to Octopus Publishing Group for the right to reproduce paintings from the book, Birds of Britain & Europe. Our thanks also to Crown Publishing for the use of images from The Life of the Hummingbird and to E. P. Dutton for images from State Birds. Thanks to the Hearst Corporation, publisher of the Bird prints and American Home magazine for permission to use the prints, and Reader’s Digest, Field & Stream, and Sports Illustrated for permission to reproduce Arthur’s early illustrations. Thanks to Rick Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles for including Arthur’s war-era watercolors in their book and documentary, The Ghost Army of World War II, and for the inspiration to take on and complete this project. Further thanks to the National Geographic for the right to reproduce their great Migration Map of Birds also featured in Phaidon’s book Maps, in 2015; and to Audubon magazine for permission to use images from the article, "Asa Wright and her Tropical Forest Ark" (1987).

172

The Authors would like to thank the U.S. Postal Service for the license to reproduce the art from the postal commemorative sheet, State Birds & Flowers (1982). Thanks to Richard Biegun, Lenny Eiger and Lisl Steiner for their photographic portraits used in this book. We would also like to acknowledge collectors of Arthur’s who purchased fine examples of his work during his active years and in later exhibitions. They include the late Bernie and Becky Haber, the late Russell Aitken, Eddie Woodin, Ruth Nelkin, Thurmond Smithgall, Barbara Johnson, Nathalie Howe and Dr. Michael Howe, David Howe, Cecilia Taylor, Lynn Serper, Rachel Baker August, James Rogers, Jerry Schieber, Don Matteson, Michael and Sandy Cantwell and many others. Thanks to the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Wendell Gilley Art Museum, Roger Tory Peterson Institute, the World Conservation Society Exhibit Gallery, Buffalo Museum of Natural History, and the many other institutions that have hosted and exhibited Arthur’s work over the decades. Thanks to Walton Ford, David Allen Sibley, Dr. Michael Charles Tobias, Kathy Kesey Foley, Gamini Ratnavira, Joel Oppenheimer, Mike Rivkin, Robert Chianese, Ph.D., and Todd Wilkinson for their testimonials, and to the late John Bull, ornithologist and close friend. And finally, thanks to David Singer for his fine typography and graphic design input, Philip Scherer and Akiko Yamamoto for their contributions to the successful design of this book, Janet Scherer and Anna Sears for all their tireless support, and Michael Hager of Museum Photographics for much of the photo-scanning.

173

INDEX albatross, 92 Allen, Robert Porter, 51 Altamira cave paintings, 16 Amadon, Dean, 52 American Home magazine, ix, 38–45, 106 American Ornithologist’s Union, 62 amphibians, 77 Anderton, John, 110 Animals A to Z, 117 antbirds, 48 Anthony, H. E., 6 aracaris, collared, 148 Astaire, Fred, 8, 10 Audubon, John James, xii, 7, 18, 46 Audubon magazine, 109, 110 Audubon Society, x, 117 Austin, Oliver L., Jr., ix, 51–53, 70, 92, 117 avocets, xi Barraband, Jacques, 7, 46 Bateman, Robert, 79 bee eaters, 98 Beebe, Wiliam, 4 Beyer, Rick, 25, 30 Birds and Flowers of the Fifty States, ix, xii–xiii, 38–45, 117–25, 129 Birds of Europe, 46, 60–69, 109, 167 Birds of Greenland, 109, 117, 167 Birds of North America, ix, xii, 56–59, 109 Birds of the Ocean (unpublished), 92–95, 167 Birds of the Seven Continents (unpublished), 96–103, 167 Birds of the West Indies, 70 Birds of the World, ix, xii, 50–55 blackbirds, 97 Blass, Bill, 24 bluebirds, xiii, 43, 122 Borland, Hal, 117 Bransom, Paul, 7 Briey, France, 22–24, 28 Brooks, Allan, 7 Brown, Lawrence, 12 Bruun, Bertel, 56, 61, 70 Buck, Frank, 5 Bull, John, 52, 70 buntings, 58, 59 Calloway, Cab, 10, 12 camouflage unit (“Ghost Army”), 24–25, 30, 167 Cantwell, Dale, 117 cardinals, 39, 75, 122 caribou, 19

174

Carney, Harry, 12 chickadees, 40, 122 civet cat, 16 cobras, 77 cock-of-the-rock, 5, 75, 101 Coheleach, Guy, xiv, xvii, 71, 79 Cooper Union Art School, xvi, 16–19; Augustus St. Gaudens medal of, 40 Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology, xv cranes, ix, 136; Japanese, 84, 106, 152 deer, 73 Dorfsman, Lou, 33, 56 Dowden, Anne Ophelia, 106 ducks, xviii, 65, 68, 70, 95 eagles, 146; bald, 129, 131; golden, 130, 151 Eckelberry, Don Richard, xiv–xvii, 70–71, 106, 110 egrets, 38, 55, 126 eiders, xviii, 65, 95 Ellington, Duke, 10–12 falcons, xvi; peregrine, x, 106, 142 Field & Stream magazine, 36, 38 finches, 58, 68, 75. See also goldfinch flamingos, 53, 145 Forester, Alice Woodson, xiv Frame House Gallery, xiv, 106, 129 Franklin Porcelain company, 117 frogs, 77 Fuertes, Louis Agassiz, xiv–xvi, 7, 18 gannets, 69 gaur, 6 geese, 67 Ghost Army of World War II, 25, 30, 167 Giant Golden Book of Birds, 51 Gilbert, Albert, xvi, 71 Gilliard, Tom, 52 giraffes, 74 Golden Nature Guide to Birds (unpublished), 70 Golden Press: Birds of Europe, xii, 46, 60–69; Birds of North America, ix, xvi, 56–59; Birds of the World, ix, xii, 51–55; Families of Birds, 70; Zoo Animals, 72–77 goldfinch, 41, 122. See also finches gorillas, 75 goshawk, 61 Gould, John, 7 grackles, 97 Greenland Fauna, 109, 117, 167 Grobel, Lawrence, 10, 37

Gromme, Owen, xiv grosbeaks, 70 grouse, 42, 64 guineafowl, vulturine, 154–55 gulls, 62 Hamlyn Guide to Birds of Britain and Europe, 56, 61 Hammer Galleries, 129 Hannah, Wood, 106 Harm, Ray, xiv harpy eagle, 146 Harris, Ned, 30 hartebeest, 17 hawk, red-tailed, 106–107 herons, 55, 126, 132, 133 Hiroshige Ando, 18 Hoffmeister, Donald, 72 Hokusai Katsushika, 18 hornbill, 2 hummingbirds, 52–53, 86–89 hyenas, 18 ibis, scarlet, 129, 138, 139 jacana, 114 Jacques, Francis Lee, 5, 7 jaguar, 7, 80, 129 Jarvie, John, 30 jays, 63 Kane, Art, 24 Kelly, Ellsworth, 24 kingfishers, 51, 106, 110, 137 kites, xv, 143 Knight, Charles R., 7 Kuhn, Bob, 79 Kuhnert, Wilhelm, 6 Kuralt, Charles, 122 Lancaster, Douglas, xv landscapes, 20–24, 28, 156–65 leopards, 79, 82, 129 Lascaux cave paintings, 16 Leventhal, Albert, 86, 92 Lewin, Ted, 71 Life of the Hummingbird, 86–89 Liljefors, Bruno, 7 lions, 78 loons, xix, 60 Lubalin, Herb, 33

magpies, 63 manakins, 100–101, 114–15 meadowlarks, 44, 122, 124 Menaboni, Athos, 38 migratory birds, 108–9 mockingbirds, 45, 122, 125 monkeys, 76 moose, 73 motmots, 113 Murphy, Robert Cushman, 6, 36, 51, 129 National Geographic, 108–9 National Park Service, 67 Norelli, Martina, xiii Notre Dame Cathedral (Paris), 31 oriole, Baltimore, 40 osprey, xvii ostrich, 3 owls, 59, 150; snowy, xvi, 62, 140, 141 parrots, 102–3 pelicans, 46–47, 69 penguins, 93 Peterson, Roger Tory, xvi, 40, 71 pheasants, 38, 42, 97, 125, 128, 153 pigeons, 6 puffins, 66 quail, 42, 122, 123, 166–67 quetzals, 50, 147 Reader’s Digest, 36, 38 rhinoceros, 4, 5, 72 roadrunner, 125 Robbins, Chandler, 56 robins, 122 rollers, 98 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 12 Rungius, Carl, xiv, 6 Sackheim, Ben, 18–19, 33 Saito, Manabu, 71 Sayles, Liz, 30 Seton, Ernest Thompson, 6–7 Shilstone, Arthur, 24 shrikes, 48 Sibley, David Allen, 110 Singer, Alan (son), xii–xiii, 33, 109; Birds and Flowers of the Fifty States and, xii–xiii, 117–25 Singer, Arthur Bernard: at Cooper Union Art School, xvi; as jazz enthusiast, 9–13; library of,

175

6–7; nickname of, 37; self-portraits of, 2, 27, 28; during World War II, 24–30 Singer, Edith “Judy” Goulfine (wife), 16, 19, 28, 38, 109 Singer, Paul (son), ix–x, 33, 67, 161 skimmers, 134, 135 Skutch, Alexander, 87, 89 Smith, Willie “The Lion,” 10, 12 snakes, 77 Snyder, Jerome, 36 spoonbills, 129, 144 Sports Illustrated, 34, 36, 37 state birds and flowers stamps, ix, xii–xiii, 38–45, 117–25, 129 Sutton, George Miksch, xv terns, 94 Thayer, Abbott Henderson, xvi thrasher, brown, 125 tigers, 79, 81, 83 tinamous, 96 tityra, masked, 101 toucans, 2, 46, 111, 149 Trévières Church, 29 Trinidad and Tobago, 110–15, 164 trogons, 50, 112 Tudor, Guy, 71 Unicover Corporation, 120 U.S. Postal Service. See Birds and Flowers of the Fifty States Valburn, Jerry, 12 Vineyard Books, 86, 92, 96 Wagner, David J., xiv–xviii Waller, Fats, 10, 13 Wilson, Alexander, 7 Wilson, Perry, 5 woodpeckers, xiv, 57, 71, 104 Woodson, Leigh Yawkey, 117, 129 World Book, xvi, 38 World War II, 24–30, 167 wrens, 125 Wright, Asa, 71 yellowhammer, 125 Yrizarry, John, 71 Zim, Herbert, 51, 53, 56, 70, 72 Zoo Animals, 7, 167

176

Photo Credits Beyer, Marilyn Rea, 30 Biegun, Richard, viii Cantwell, Dale, 120, 156 Eiger, Lenny, xii Family photos, 16, 24, 28, 38 Singer, Alan, 67, 71, 116 Singer, Arthur, 12, 33, 71, 89, 109 Singer, Judy, 36, 57 Singer, Paul, 71, 110 Skutch, Alexander, 89 Steiner, Lisl, vii, 54 Shanley, Matthew, AMNH 92, 93, 94, 95

Picture Credits American Museum of Natural History, 92-95 August, Rachel Baker, 46-47 Cantwell, Michael, 61, 79, 147 Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 134 Condé Nast, ix, 39-45 Estate of Arthur Singer ii, xx, 6, 62, 64, 68-69, 7177, 79, 81, 82, 86, 88-89, 90, 92, 96-97, 104, 114, 117, 130-131, 133, 135, 137, 140, 144, 146, 151153, 156-165 Genesee Country Museum, 78 Howe, Natalia and Dr. Michael, 22-23, 128 Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, xiv-xvii, 138, 141, 149 Manougian, Anthony, 67 National Geographic, 108-109 Nelkin Collection, 132 Private Collection, xviii, 54-55, 60, 63, 65, 66, 82, 84, 97, 98-99, 102-103, 106-107, 111-113, 115, 122, 129, 136, 139, 148, 154-155, 166-167 Reader’s Digest, 38 Rogers, James, 11, 145 Scherer, Janet, 86-87, 88 Singer, Alan, x, 3, 14, 25, 26, 28, 52-53, 142 Singer, Paul, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10-13, 16-19, 20, 24, 26-27, 29-38, 46, 48, 50-51, 56, 57-59, 70, 80, 100-101, 143 Smithgall, Thurmond, xix Taylor, Celina, 126 USPS, 13, 118, 121, 123-125 Winchester, 38 Woodin, Eddie, Collection of, 57-59, 70, 150

177

COLOPHON

Edited by Molly Q. Cort

Production by Marnie Soom

Designed by Paul Singer and David Singer

Typefaces are Swiss 721 designed by Max Miedinger for Bitstream Minion Pro designed by Robert Slimbach for Adobe Systems Chaparral Text designed by Carol Twombley for Adobe Systems

Printed on GSM Lumi Silk paper for text 100# gloss art paper for cover

Printing and binding by Four Color Print Group Louisville, Kentucky Printed in China

RIT Press acknowledges the support for publication of this book provided by Brooks Bower, Canandaigua National Bank & Trust, Joy Griffin Williams and Kathy Yu

178