John James Audubon

John James Audubon (1785–1851) was an American naturalist and painter whose The Birds of America, engraved in London between 1827 and 1838, presented 435 species life-size and in dramatic natural poses. Born in Saint-Domingue, the son of a French sea captain, he was raised in France and sent to America in 1803 to escape conscription. After failing in business in Kentucky, he devoted himself to drawing birds and traveled to Britain in search of subscribers and engravers. His Ornithological Biography supplied the text for the plates, and his journals record later expeditions to Labrador and up the Missouri River.