William Matthew Hart Explained

William Matthew Hart
Birth Date:	1830
Birth Place:	Limerick, Ireland^[1] ^[2]
Death Date:	1908
Death Place:	Camberwell, London
Occupation:	Illustrator and lithographer
Nationality:	English

William Matthew Hart (1830-1908) was an Irish-born English bird illustrator and lithographer who worked for John Gould.

Hart started medical training, but was unable to complete his studies for financial reasons. He began working for Gould in 1851, beginning an association that was to last thirty years. Early during this period he made the patterns for the lithographic plates for Gould's work on hummingbirds, as well as working on The Birds of Great Britain with Henry Constantine Richter. By 1870, Hart had become Gould's chief artist and lithographer. After Gould's death in 1881, Hart was employed by Richard Bowdler Sharpe of the British Museum to complete Gould's work on the birds of New Guinea and to produce illustrations for Sharpe's monograph on the birds-of-paradise.^{[3] [4] [5]}

Notes and References

1. Christine E. Jackson: Dictionary of Bird Artists of the World. Antique Collectors Club, 1999, p 274-275.
2. Roger J. Lederer: The Art of the Bird: The History of Ornithological Art Through Forty Artists, André Deutsch Ltd., 2019,, 2019, p 114–118
3. Book: Feather and brush: three centuries of Australian bird art . Olsen, Penny . 2001 . CSIRO Publishing . Melbourne . 978-0-643-06547-5 .
4. Web site: William Matthew Hart (1830-1908) . 2010-08-01 . Australian Museum .
5. Book: Sharpe, R. Bowdler . Richard Bowdler Sharpe . 1891–1898 . Monograph of the Paradiseidæ or Birds of Paradise and Ptilonorhinchidæ, or Bower-Birds . 1 . Preface . London . Henry Sotheran .