Wausau, WI Prepares To Celebrate 50 Years Of ‘Birds In Art’

Depictions of birds in art go back to prehistoric petroglyphs and pictographs. Every culture in every corner of the globe portrays birds in their artwork. They are a universal, like the sun and moon and stars.

What is above has always fascinated us below.

The best contemporary bird artists will convene again in Wausau, WI the weekend after Labor Day for the opening of the 50^th annual “Birds in Art” exhibition at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum. The exhibition features new paintings, sculptures, and works on paper created by 102 juried artists, including international artists representing 16 countries, chosen from 703 applicants who submitted 1,160 artworks for consideration. More than 80 artists are expected at the opening festivities, several of whom will be participating in interactive programs and live demonstrations throughout the weekend.

Thinking about birds in art tends to bring to mind images of John James Audubon’s (1785-1851) detailed representations from “Birds of America,” and while realism will always have a place in bird art, contemporary bird artists are branching out.

“The origins of the exhibition represented a lot birds flying left, birds flying right, representational scenes from masters like Robert Bateman and Guy Coheleach and Owen Gromme and Roger Tory Peterson, but over time, and especially since the pandemic, rather than a strict, realistic interpretation of birds, artists of all styles and mediums have reimagined the concept of birds in art and what it means to them,” Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum Director Matt Foss told Forbes.com. “It’s amazing how fresh the exhibition is each year; there’s a lot of familiar names in each exhibition because they’re the best at what they do, but artists continue to reinvent the subject of birds in art.”

Foss has been at the museum for 15 years, working his way up to director from volunteer intern. Over that time, especially post-COVID, he’s noticed the field evolve and expand dramatically.

“Since the pandemic, (artwork in the exhibition) is more what’s happening in the modern art world. Even the repeat artists have really changed their game by looking at what their peers are doing,” Foss said. “For a lot of these artists who do preparatory work in the field–they’re either working in plein air or studying their subjects–that was one of the things that, for the most part, was untouched. Even though everything in the rest of their lives was turned upside down, they could still go out and study their subjects in forests or near coasts or in grasslands. Rather than just sitting there studying, they might have been taking what was going on in the world and reimagining how they saw wildlife and the reciprocal nature of it.”

In bird and wildlife art more broadly, there will always be a place for the strictly representational, for realism, but any medium or genre refusing to evolve dies. It becomes Dixieland music. Antiquated. Wildlife art can be confining, constricting, customary; contemporary artists are assuring its survival and vibrancy by breaking from the traditional.

Take Jane Kim (b. 1981), an artist again showing in this year’s “Birds in Art” exhibition.

“She’s a scientific illustrator by training. She’s most well-known for doing a large mural at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, this huge undertaking, and she’s as realistic as it gets,” Foss explained. “Her work this year is a Victorian inspired hat, essentially a work of taxidermy made from dead starlings. That’s completely not what she’s known for, but a way to convey her love and knowledge of bird species in a different way.”

The Woodson’s and Owen Gromme

Leigh Yawkey Woodson was born into northern Wisconsin timber royalty. Consider for yourself the irony of an art museum known for its world-class bird exhibition being founded on timber money, money made by sawing down the homes and habitat of birds.

Leigh Yawkey Woodson’s parents created the tiny lumbering town of Hazelhurst, WI, about 60 miles due north of Wausau. The Yawkey’s wanted their daughter to grow up in the larger town of Wausau, which she did, a city now with a population of roughly 40,000 people in the north and central part of the state. Upon her death, Woodson’s three children sought to honor her memory by creating an art museum for the community. The family had collected more stamps than art, however.

Enter Owen Gromme.

One of Woodson’s daughters was friends with Gromme (1896-1991), a well-known Wisconsin artist, ornithologist, taxidermist, and environmentalist. He grew up in Fond du Lac, WI on Lake Winnebago observing the waterfowl and migrating birds. He’d go on to work at the Milwaukee Public Museum for 43 years, retiring from the post of Curator of Birds and Mammals in January 1965.

The Woodson’s asked Gromme for help in developing an inaugural exhibition to open the museum in fall of 1976.

“(Gromme) was thinking about what people would be doing in the fall in northern Wisconsin. Well, they’d be doing a lot of bird watching and bird hunting. What if we did something called ‘Birds of the Lakes, Fields and Forests?’ That was the inaugural exhibition, and it was a huge hit,” Foss said. “Museum stakeholders said we should do this again next year, and it was a big hit again next year, and the year after, and it eventually evolved into what’s known as ‘Birds in Art.’ Owen Gramme basically said, ‘I’ll call a few friends, we’ll get an exhibition together,’ and his friends just happened to be some of the best wildlife artists in North America.”

Fifty years later, the event is still going strong, bigger than ever.

“It’s a great benefit for the community; to communities the size of Wausau, to be able to spend such valuable time with well-known professional artists from around the world, it’s really something,” Foss said. “The thing that always touches me, this year we’ll have artists from Japan, from Australia, from Africa, Peru, the Netherlands, Sweden, come to Wausau, Wisconsin for a weekend in September. Obviously, they fly into New York or Chicago or LA, but they come to Wausau, and we’re their introduction to America, and the connections formed over time between the artists themselves and the artists and (the museum and community) is so important.”

“Birds in Art’s” opening-day festivities on Saturday morning, September 6, include a guest speaker’s presentation, Artists in Action demonstrations, Watch, Learn & Create sessions with artists at the Glass Box Studio, and opportunities to meet the many artists visiting from across the globe.

The exhibition will remain on view through January 4, 2026.

Bird art lovers unable to visit Wausau can also get their fix later this fall at the Waterfowl Festival in Easton, MD.

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