Name: A Brief History of Bird Illustration and Painting with Michael DiGiorgio
Start: 2025-11-25T19:00:00-08:00
End: 2025-11-25T20:30:00-08:00
Location: 2559 Puesta del Sol, Santa Barbara, CA, United States, California 93105

A Brief History of Bird Illustration and Painting with Michael DiGiorgio

Presented by the Santa Barbara Audubon Society and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
This informative and beautifully illustrated free presentation will survey the art of painting birds since the nineteenth century, both as fine art and as illustrations for field guides. The talk will begin by covering artists like John Gould and John James Audubon and their contributions to the field of ornithology, then will show the evolution from early avian artists to more modern painters like Louis Fuertes, Don Eckelberry, Roger Tory Peterson, Albert Gilbert, and Guy Tudor. The talk will also include a personal history of Michael DiGiorgio’s own life as a bird artist and the methods he uses to create vibrant paintings and assure accurate illustrations.
Michael DiGiorgio is a nationally recognized artist whose paintings and drawings have appeared in nature books and journals, such as Birds of Brazil, vol. 1&2, Birds of Honduras, Breeding Bird Atlas of Connecticut, New York State Breeding Bird Atlas, and The Narrow Edge by Deborah Cramer. From 2007 to 2012, DiGiorgio was contracted to completely revise all of the birds of Hawaii for an updated edition of the Peterson Field Guide to Birds.
Committed to painting from life, DiGiorgio has traveled extensively to create field sketches of birds, plants, and habitat from Central and South America, the West Indies, Trinidad, and the Outer Islands of Britain. In addition, his numerous trips to the western United States and various national parks have allowed him to record a full range of American birdlife.
In 2005, DiGiorgio received the first ever Eckelberry Endowment Award from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia in recognition of his bird illustration work. His paintings have been exhibited at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute, the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and the Mall Gallery in London.
No tickets or reservations needed.
Artwork by Michael DiGiorgio