William Matthew Hart

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

William Matthew Hart
Born	1830 Limerick, Ireland[1][2]
Died	1908 Camberwell, London
Nationality	English
Occupation(s)	Illustrator and lithographer

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]

References

1. Christine E. Jackson: Dictionary of Bird Artists of the World. Antique Collectors Club, 1999, p 274-275. ISBN 978-1-85149-203-9
2. Roger J. Lederer: The Art of the Bird: The History of Ornithological Art Through Forty Artists, André Deutsch Ltd., 2019, ISBN 978-0-2330-0607-9, 2019, p 114–118
3. Olsen, Penny (2001). Feather and brush: three centuries of Australian bird art. Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing. ISBN 978-0-643-06547-5.
4. "William Matthew Hart (1830-1908)". Australian Museum. Retrieved 1 August 2010.
5. Sharpe, R. Bowdler (1891–1898). "Preface". Monograph of the Paradiseidæ or Birds of Paradise and Ptilonorhinchidæ, or Bower-Birds. Vol. 1. London: Henry Sotheran.