Classic bird paintings

Classic bird paintings: Audubon's plates and other portraits of 45 birds

John James Audubon painted every one of these 45 birds for The Birds of America (1827–38), and many also appear in books by John Gould and Louis Agassiz Fuertes. Each page shows one classic painting of the bird, Audubon's plate number and his name for it, where to see a free high-resolution scan, and a few sourced facts about the bird.

Updated

The birds, A to Z

Where to see the plates free

Every plate of Audubon’s The Birds of America is free to view on Audubon.org and in the University of Pittsburgh’s online collection. Each bird’s page links its own plates, and the free scans of other classic portraits of it: Audubon’s smaller octavo edition at the New York Public Library, John Gould’s plates at the University of Kansas, and Louis Agassiz Fuertes’s Birds of New York on the Internet Archive. For every plate in order, with today’s bird names, see all 435 of Audubon’s plates.

Thinking of buying one? Read how to tell an original Audubon print from a reproduction, then how to frame a classic bird print.

The painters

Your own birds, beside the classic paintings

A Birdfolio is a hardcover book of every bird you’ve seen, each beside a classic painting like these. See your own list as a book, free.