Archive: Arts & Entertainment

Original paintings by one of the most influential wildlife artists of the 20th century will be on display at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Exquisite bird illustrations and paintings created by Arthur Singer (1917-1990) will hang in the Visitor Center auditorium beginning November 2. They will be on view through February 2018, between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. each day of the week.

One key highlight of the exhibit is the opportunity to hear from the artist's two sons. Paul and Alan Singer will talk about their father's life and work during the Monday Night Seminar held in the Cornell Lab auditorium on November 6 at 7:30 p.m., while a selection of Singer owls, finches, spoonbills, and hummingbirds gaze from the walls.

The talk is also being live streamed.

"My father studied the works of the American wildlife artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes in his teenage years and was later exposed to the works of John James Audubon as a student at The Cooper Union," said Paul Singer. "Although Audubon's influence is present in his earlier work, Arthur developed his own painting style by the 1960s. He was a keen observer of nature and would always take his camera and his watercolors on any and all field trips in the U.S. and abroad."

Paul and Alan Singer have co-authored a new biography called Arthur Singer: The Wildlife Art of an American Master. The book will be available at the the Wild Birds Unlimited store in the Cornell Lab Visitor Center for signing after the seminar.

Arthur Singer began drawing animals as a teen during outings to state parks, the Bronx Zoo, and the American Museum of Natural History. Years later, he collaborated with jazz legends Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway on album covers. In the 1940s, he served in a secret battalion during World War II nicknamed "The Ghost Army." From the 1950s onward, though, he pursued a career dedicated to wildlife art. Most of all, Singer loved to paint birds. He did thousands of them, with the spectacular birds-of-paradise being his favorites.

Singer introduced many others to the wonder of birds through his Golden Guide to Birds of North America, still in print 50 years after it was first published. The Birds and Flowers stamps that Arthur and Alan Singer illustrated together in the early 1980s were hugely popular.

"The collections of art and the wonderful new wall murals are just a few of the reasons why we visit the Cornell Lab," said Alan Singer. "It's our hope that our father's work will stimulate conversation and engagement when it comes to our environment and conservation. That is what the combination of art and science can do so well."

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