HAVELL, ROBERT, JR.

born Nov. 25, 1793, Reading, Berkshire, Eng. died Nov. 11, 1878, Tarrytown, N.Y., U.S. American landscape painter and printmaker who engraved the plates for John James Audubon's Birds of America. Havell's life to age 46 was spent in Great Britain, where his engraver father oversaw his development as an aquatint artist and urged him to enter a more erudite profession. He responded by leaving home in 1825. Two years later his father accepted the job of printing Birds of America, and his search for a graphic artist of the highest calibre led him back to his son, whom he found working for a publishing firm. He engaged him to make the plates. The younger Robert also did most of the watercolouring of the prints. The edition was successful, and Havell's work, notable for its preservation of Audubon's scientific as well as artistic detail, was praised. During the years that were taken up with the work (182738), Havell became a close friend and associate of Audubon. In 1839 he went to America, where he lived with Audubon for a while, then resided successively in Brooklyn, Ossining, and Tarrytown, N.Y. Although he continued aquatint and engraving (primarily panoramic city views), he devoted most of his attention to painting the countryside of the Hudson River valley. The subject of his American works and his devotion to his adopted landscape have placed him with the group of American painters known as the Hudson River school.