Crowded House—South Brother Island Colony

2015–2017

Oil on canvas

Unframed: 32 × 30 in. (81.3 × 76.2 cm)
Framed: 35 1/4 × 33 1/4 × 3 in. (89.5 × 84.5 × 7.6 cm)

Gift of Dr. Janet Shapiro

2023.41

Born and raised in Oregon, Alan Messer deepened his love for birds after moving to New York. The city, which boasts a range of habitats and lies along a major route for migrating birds known as the Atlantic Flyway, is home to an active birding community of which Messer became an integral member. The artist and birder served as president of the Linnaean Society of New York (2005-2007), lectured at the New-York Historical Society and the American Museum of Natural History, and contributed commissioned illustrations to such birding journals and field guides as The Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in New York State and Nature Walks of Central Park. Crowded House—South Brother Island Colony depicts great egrets, black-crowned night herons, and double-crested cormorants variously flying, perched, and nesting on South Brother Island, one of a pair of small islands in the East River between the Bronx and Rikers Island. A designated wildlife sanctuary under the purview of the New York City Parks Department since 2007, South Brother Island features dense brush which supports nesting colonies for the species pictured. A tower from the Queens-Randalls Island span of the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, still commonly known as the Triborough Bridge, peeks above the trees in the background. It marks the view as southwesterly and the scene as a one of an avian sanctuary amid the metropolis of New York. Though it focuses on New York, Messer’s painting also speaks to a broader interconnected world and global ecosystem. The three featured species are migratory. As Messer explains, “To stay attuned to the play of avian migration coursing all around us is to stay attuned to the seasons’ pulse on a global scale. I’m one of an ever-growing community of nature watchers following this wilderness of birds connecting our hemispheres each spring and autumn.” The artist renders the great egrets, black-crowned night herons, and double-crested cormorants with ornithological accuracy. Yet he relates that in the wild, these species would not gather in close proximity as portrayed. The fantastical grouping draws inspiration from his encounter with a painting by the eighteenth-century Venetian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo in which an array of allegorical figures mingle among the clouds. Messer’s sunlit vision of thriving nature captures the splendor of birds and the joy of birding. As he recounts, “What bird is that? Where do they come from? Where are they going? How do they survive? I never tire of answering the questions of beginning birders because I never stop asking the same questions myself.”

DescriptionNature scene depicting several birds (great egrets, black-crowned night herons, and double-crested cormorants) variously flying, perched, and nesting on South Brother Island in the East River with the Queens-Randalls Island span of the Robert F. Kennedy (Triborough) Bridge in the background.

ClassificationsPAINTINGS