James Fenwick Lansdowne, (August 8, 1937 – July 27, 2008) was a self-taught

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

wildlife Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animals and uncultivated plant species which can exist in their natural habitat, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introdu ...

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

.A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, volumes 1–8 by Colin S. MacDonald, and volume 9 (online only), by Anne Newlands and Judith Parker National Gallery of Canada / Musée des beaux-arts du Canada

Career

Lansdowne was born in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

of English parents and grew up in

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Gre ...

. Stricken with polio at eleven months, he was nurtured by his mother, Edith Lansdowne, to walk. A painter herself, she also provided his first lessons in painting and continued to supply whatever help she could. Later, in high school, the staff of the

Royal British Columbia Museum The Royal British Columbia Museum (or Royal BC Museum), founded in 1886, is a history museum in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The "Royal" title was approved by Queen Elizabeth II and bestowed by Prince Philip in 1987, to coincide with a ...

encouraged him in studying birds, and gave him a job as a laboratory assistant for three summers. He held his first show in 1952 at the Royal British Columbia Museum when he was fourteen, his second show at the

Royal Ontario Museum The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year ...

in 1956. He had his first international exhibition in New York in 1958 at the headquarters of the

National Audubon Society The National Audubon Society (Audubon; ) is an American non-profit environmental organization dedicated to conservation of birds and their habitats. Located in the United States and incorporated in 1905, Audubon is one of the oldest of such orga ...

. In 1960, he had an exhibition at the

Art Gallery of Greater Victoria The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (AGGV) is an art museum located in Victoria, British Columbia, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Situated in Rockland, Greater Victoria, Rockland, Victoria, the museum occupies a building complex; made up of ...

, then, in 1961, he had an exhibition at the Tryon Gallery (today's Rountree Tryon Gallery) in London, England. From then on, he exhibited his work in centres world-wide. Lansdowne's creative process involved observation from life and from preserved specimens. His detailed watercolours of birds have frequently been compared with the work of

John James Audubon John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin, April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was a French-American Autodidacticism, self-trained artist, natural history, naturalist, and ornithology, ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornitho ...

– they often feature a specific species against a largely white background – but his subjects tend to display a greater lifelike quality and more natural postures than Audubon's. His work is in such public collections as the

, the

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is an art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest art museum in Canada by gallery space. The museum is located on the historic Golden Square Mile stretch of Sherbrooke Street west. The MMFA ...

, the

Beaverbrook Art Gallery The Beaverbrook Art Gallery () commonly referred to simply as The Beaverbrook, is a public art gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. It is named after William Maxwell "Max" Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, who funded the building of the gallery ...

, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and in the collection of the Princess Royal and Duke of Edinburgh. His work was presented to members of the British royal family by the Government of Canada. In 1976, Lansdowne was made an Officer of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada () is a Canadian state order, national order and the second-highest Award, honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the Canadian Centennial, ce ...

. In 1995, he was awarded the

Order of British Columbia The Order of British Columbia is a civilian honour for merit in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Instituted in 1989 by Lieutenant Governor David Lam, on the advice of the Cabinet under Premier Bill Vander Zalm, the order is administe ...

. In 1974, he was elected a member of the

Royal Canadian Academy of Arts The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) is a Canadian arts-related organization that was founded in 1880. History 1880 to 1890 The title of Royal Canadian Academy of Arts was received from Victoria of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria on 16 ...

. He died in Victoria, British Columbia, in 2008.

Personal life

Since Lansdowne had polio, he walked with crutches and only could paint with his left hand.

Publications

* ''Birds of the Northern Forest'' (1966) – text by John A. Livingston * ''Birds of the Eastern Forest, Volume I'' (1968) – text by John A. Livingston * ''Birds of the Eastern Forest, Volume II'' (1970) – text by John A. Livingston * ''Birds of the West Coast, Volume I'' (1976) * ''Rails of the World'' (1977) – text by S. Dillon Ripley * ''Guide to the Behavior of Common Birds'' (1980) with Donald Stokes * ''Birds of the West Coast, Volume II'' (1982)

References

Bibliography

External links

Examples of Lansdowne's work

* ttp://www.orderofbc.gov.bc.ca/members/obc-1995/ Order of British Columbia 1995 group photo {{DEFAULTSORT:Lansdowne, Fenwick 1937 births 2008 deaths Artists from Victoria, British Columbia Hong Kong painters Members of the Order of British Columbia Officers of the Order of Canada Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts 20th-century Canadian painters Canadian male painters 21st-century Canadian painters Canadian bird artists 20th-century Canadian male artists 21st-century Canadian male artists