A BIRD IN HAND

Article published in Deccan Herald 12.10.2008
A bird in hand...



What makes Fenwick's art distinct is the spirit of the birds and their natural habitat that he has captured in his water colours, says SUJIT CHOWDHURY


Painting flora and fauna is a specialised area and very few artists have perfected this art. With the passing away of Fenwick Lansdowne on July 26, 2008, we have lost a celebrated artist who painted birds with rare sensitivity and precision, unlike many natural artists. Apart from a painter, he was a conservationist who fought for the cause of endangered avian species.Fenwick was born in Hong Kong in 1937 to British parents. He contracted polio, paralysing the right side of his body when he was less than a year old. During the Second World War, the family moved and settled down in Victoria, Canada. Fenwick’s mother was a trained artist and was good at water colour. Young Fenwick, lying on a stretcher, started drawing and painting under his mother’s guidance. When he was 13, he started showing interest in painting birds.He studied birds and insects from the Ornithological collection at the Royal British Columbia Museum as well as learnt many things by watching them in the wild. Appreciating his talent, the museum offered Fenwick an apprenticeship and also exhibited his work when he was only 15 years old. Soon he had another exhibition of West Coast birds at the Royal Ontario Museum. Seeing that, John Livingston, a leading naturalist and environmentalist, commented, “He has the most remarkable combination of scientific truth and artistic feeling I’ve ever seen.”


This was the beginning of a remarkable career of Fenwick whose oeuvre is considered to be in the true tradition of John James Audubon (1785-1851). Fenwick carried forward Audubon’s legacy as his birds communicate emotions.Both Audubon and Fenwick have spectacular draftsmanship, superb colours and fine texture. What makes Fenwick’s art distinct is the spirit of the birds and their natural habitat that he captured in his water colour paintings and drawings as he said once, “I do bird portraits.” Normally, bird-paintings look frozen and formal as an anatomical or an ornamental piece but Fenwick’s work portrays the essence of these birds with all delicacy, spectacular variety of colours and movement.In 1966, Fenwick published Birds of the Northern Forest followed by Birds of the Eastern Forest, Volume I (1968) and Volume II (1970). The text was written by John Livingston. Fenwick established himself as a naturalist with Birds of the West Coast in two volumes (1976 & 1982) as he wrote the text himself.He was specially commissioned to illustrate S Dillon Ripley’s famous monograph ‘Rails of the World’ (1977). Rails (Rallidae family) are rare endangered species found in remote islands, dense forests and isolated coastlines worldwide. These birds live in a colony and once they are comfortable in a habitat, they gradually lose the urge to migrate and become prey to predators. That is how many species became extinct or are endangered. This was a remarkable study with over 70 colour, and black and white illustrations by Fenwick.In 1982, Fenwick married Helen Nicholson and had two children, Tristram and Emma. Tristram is also a painter who prefers water colours and focuses on urban environment as his theme. In 1984, Fenwick was commissioned for another significant project of studying rare and endangered birds in China. It was a 10-year-long project in collaboration with leading ornithologists like Cheng Hso-Hsin and Hsu Weishu, the Academia Sinica, the Ornithological Society of China and the Beijing Natural History Museum. The project involved extensive journey in the wild despite his physical disability.For this study published as Rare Birds of China, Fenwick produced 32 prints with Collotype printing which is a tedious printing process requiring up to 12 colours per image, each applied separately on handmade plates.It is worth mentioning that Fenwick never allowed unlimited production of his prints despite the hefty price his prints fetched. For example, the price of 32-prints collection of Rare Birds of China was $ 25,000. He always made limited editions of his prints under his signature and destroyed the plates.He had exhibitions of his work in all the prominent galleries and natural museums of the world. He was a member of the Royal Canadian Academy and was honoured with the Order of Canada and the Order of the British Columbia. In the preface to Birds of the West Coast Vol. II, The Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip wrote that Fenwick captured the magical moment when a long sought bird is seen in its characteristic setting and thus he “...has the exceptional ability to capture such moments with an effortless assurance but which can only come from intimate knowledge, immense care and remarkable talent.”Due to his passionate involvement, Fenwick’s bird paintings have become an autobiographical record of his intimate experience with birds in their natural habitat.His life and work demonstrate that he was a scientific observer and a skillful delineator who elevated the status of bird paintings to that of bird-portraits.