Book Description

George M. Sutton (1898-1982), an esteemed ornithologist, was also one of the preeminent bird artists of the Twentieth Century. He was asked by his friend Thomas D. Burleigh, who worked on his manuscript for Georgia Birds during the 1940s and '50s, to provide the illustrations. Sutton painted a series of individual portraits of a select group of Georgia birds shown in their natural habitats. Sutton arranged to spend the spring and summer of 1952 with his friend Herbert L. Stoddard at Stoddard's Sherwood Plantation in southern Grady County. They made a field trip to the Georgia coast near Savannah and Brunswick to study shore birds. Otherwise Sutton sought, studied, and painted birds in Stoddard's backyard. Sutton described his experiences with Stoddard and his Meridian Road neighbors in an affectionate essay in the front matter of Georgia Birds, and in charming one-paragraph vignettes for each painting. Sutton gave the original Georgia Birds' watercolors to Stoddard, whose son later donated them to Tall Timbers; they are part of the Stoddard Collection.