Rex Brasher (1869–1960) is one of America’s great bird artists. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Rex became passionate about birds at an early age. He was influenced by his father, who was an avid naturalist and bird taxidermist. At the age of eight, Rex decided he would one day paint every bird in North America, from life, in their natural habitats. And he did.
As a boy, Rex accompanied his father on many trips around the New York Harbor and Long Island Sound. Rex was also influenced by a family story involving John James Audubon. Having obtained an audience with the great artist, Rex’s father arrived at the appointed time, only to be informed that Audubon was too busy to see him. Looking into the room, Rex’s father observed Audubon painting a dead bird hanging from the ceiling. Rex resolved to be better than Audubon.
Rex led a colorful life, vagabonding across the North American continent, studying birds and sketching them from life in the field. He financed his expeditions by working as a lithographer, playing the horses, and working on a fishing vessel. After losing most of his money on an unsuccessful wager, he found work on a fishing boat sailing out of Boston and Portland, Maine, which allowed him to study and sketch sea birds.
Rex traveled to the West, the Midwest, and the Gulf Coast, by train and on foot, sometimes walking for months at a time. He was happy to hike through forests and swamps in search of his subjects and would lie for hours in a hidden blind to study bird behavior. Along the way, he sent back to Brooklyn the sketches and notes he produced. Despite having no formal art training, Rex painted 1,200 species and subspecies of birds, 3,000 individual birds, including males, females, and juveniles, and more than 350 species of trees and shrubs. He ultimately spent hours at the American Museum of Natural History, studying its collection and perfecting his technique. In 1907, Rex met Louis Agassiz Fuertes, the famous bird painter, who became a significant influence on his artistic techniques as well as a good friend. Twice Rex destroyed all his paintings, believing they were not good enough.
In 1911, with funds from his work as an illustrator, Rex purchased a small farmhouse on the border between Kent, Connecticut, and Amenia, New York, which he named Chickadee Valley. By working daily as long as the light allowed, in 1924 Rex finally completed 874 watercolors of all the birds in North America, including 1,200 species and subspecies of birds listed on the American Ornithologists Union (AOU) Checklist of North American Birds. The numbers on many of his paintings are the AOU numbers assigned to the birds. In 1935 Rex offered his collection of paintings to the State of Connecticut on the condition that a suitable repository could be found for them. After various failed attempts to raise funds for a museum to display them, Rex took the paintings back. In 1938 the entire collection was exhibited in Explorers Hall of the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C.
Rex was determined to keep his collection intact, but he wanted a wider audience for his work. Realizing that publishing all 874 paintings in color would be prohibitively expensive, he had black and white reproductions made from the original paintings. Using stencils and airbrush, he hand-colored approximately 90,000 images. Using a renovated barn on his property, Rex produced a 12-volume set of his paintings, accompanied by text, titled Birds and Trees of North America. The volumes were sold to subscribers such as Will Keith Kellogg, Richard Beatty Mellon, and William E. Boeing. Many of the complete sets that exist today are still held privately or owned by libraries.
In 1941 Rex sold the entire collection of watercolor paintings to the State of Connecticut, again with the expectation that they would be housed in a museum. Plans were drawn for a museum to be built near Kent, but World War II intervened and museum plans were abandoned. For many years, the paintings were on exhibit at the Harkness Manor at the Harkness Memorial State Park in Waterford, Connecticut. In 1988, ownership of the collection was transferred to the University of Connecticut. In partnership with the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History, the Rex Brasher collection is now housed at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center in Storrs.
Far from being a recluse, Rex had a gift for getting along with people. So that he could work undisturbed, visitors were welcomed after four in the afternoon. Rex lived simply, painted in natural light, chopped his own firewood, and refused to install electricity in his home because of his fear of fire. Boys from the nearby Kent School often visited Rex, and many volunteered to assist with his chores. Rex once offered each boy one dollar if they could find and plug every mouse hole in the house. According to Rex’s descendants, who still live in the house, they are free of mice a century later. Rex was one of the founders of the Kent Art Association.
One of the few people who believed in Rex during the early days was his half-niece Marie. An educated and accomplished woman, Marie was the executive secretary to the mayor of New York City. Marie encouraged and supported Rex in the lean years, and it was Marie with whom he made his home in Chickadee Valley. She researched and typed up all the notes for Birds and Trees of North America and was a major part of the success of the project. Marie was the love of his life, and her death in 1933 was a devastating blow to Rex.
Rex’s biographer, his nephew Milton Brasher, noted that Rex was often generous to family and friends. Rex loaned Milton $1,000 to start a business, then tore up the note. A neighbor faced with a devastating illness found $100 in his mailbox from Rex. He sometimes gave small presents to those in need, even though his own money was scarce. All of his efforts centered on his art.