Ernest Thompson Seton
was born in England in 1860, and at a young age, moved with his family to Canada where he was educated in public schools. He studied art in Toronto, winning a gold medal in high school. Although he was set on being a naturalist, his father insisted he study to be an artist and sent him to London to study at the Royal Academy. Seton returned to Canada and joined his brother on a farm in Manitoba where he gained experience as a naturalist by trailing and hunting in the prairie country. Following successes in illustrating nature studies he left for Paris to study animal anatomy and on his return to the U.S., moved to New York where he lectured, wrote and studied taxidermy. Deeply concerned with the future of the prairie Seton fought to establish reservations for Indians and parks for animals threatened by extinction. Seton's work can be seen at the Lion House (1903) at the Bronx Zoo. His black and white drawings made for Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright's book Four-footed Americans and Their Kin, were intended to be the nucleus of the collection for a school of animal painting and sculpture that would make the Zoo the center of the world for such work. Seton wrote Anatomy of Animals, 1896, and illustrated more than 42 books on Indian lore and wildlife. His most popular book Wild Animals I have Known (1898) which included 200 drawings attracted the attention of Theodore Roosevelt, with whom he became a fast friend. Seton died in his home in New Mexico in 1946.
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