JOHANNES GERARDUS KEULEMANS is during his life not as well-known in the Netherlands as he is abroad, where he is known as John Gerrard Keulemans. Born on the 8th of June 1842, the inhabitant of Rotterdam is already from a young age a passionate wildlife lover. He was, just as the famous bird painters John James Laforest Audubon (° 1785 - † 1851) and John Gould (° 1804 - † 1881), involved in bird stuffing and making sketches of the fly movements of bird’s.

The boy desperately wants to be an explorer and his dream becomes true in 1864. Due to a recommendation of Professor dr. HERMANN SCHLEGEL, director of the Museum of Natural History (Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie) in Leiden, Keulemans accompanies the wildlife researcher dr. Heinrich Dohrn (° 1838 – † 1913) during his expedition to tropical West-Africa. To the displeasure of his German fellow traveller, he publishes, already in 1866, the 39 pages long article about the birdlife on the Cape Verde Islands (“Opmerkingen over de Vogels van de Kaap-Verdische Eilanden en van Prins-Eiland”) in a Dutch scientific magazine (”Nederlandsch Tijdschrift voor de Dierkunde”). After his return to the Netherlands the Dutch field ornithologist gets in March 1866 a job at the museum in Leiden, where he works until 1868. In the meantime, on the 16th of March 1867, the ”assistant draughtsman” marries Engelina Johanna Spoor (° 1848 – † 1876).

Keulemans writes a work that comprises three volumes and is called ”Onze Vogels in Huis en Tuin” (1869-1876), which he provides with 200 hand coloured litho’s. Simultaneously, he is making illustrations for ”A monograph of the Alcedinidea (Kingfishers)” a book of dr. Richard Bowdler Sharpe (° 1847 – † 1909) that appears in eighteen numbers between 1868 and 1871. Also due to this curator of the British Museum in London, Keulemans acquires an international reputation and appreciation as illustrator. Sharpe advices the ambitious artist to emigrate to England, what happenes at the end the year 1869. In 1871, Keulemans second book appears: ”A Natural History of Cage Birds”.

The artist is soon the most asked bird illustrator of his time. He has work enough, because in his time many, so far unknown, birds are being discovered. All of these birds have to be described and portrayed in colour. It is said that no important work about birds, wherever in the world, can be published without the illustrations of Keulemans. The illustrator has an enormous production. He makes thousands of pictures for at least 147 books. Moreover, the bird painter becomes the regular illustrator of 24 authoritative magazines, amongst which ”The Ibis” of the British Ornithological Union and ”Proceedings and Transactions” of the Zoological society in London. A great number of these publications are nowadays rare and particularly precious.

Regarding to Dutch magazines, JACOBUS PIETER THIJSSE of the magazine ”Het Vogeljaar” manages to put in pictures of Keuleman’s book ”Onze vogels in huis en tuin”. Keulemans also paints other animals, which becomes clear from the book ”A Monograph of the Canidea (Dogs, Jackals, Wolves and Foxes)” (1890) of St. G. Mivart. Few individual paintings are known from Keulemans. Some of them are portrayed in the book ”Feathers to Brush. The Victorian bird artist John Gerrard Keulemans 1842-1912” (1982). The Dutchman CONSTANT JAN COLDEWEY, the most important collector of works with illustrations of Keulemans, writes this private edition together with Keulemans’ great-grandchild Tony (° 1930), who is a professor in Melbourne (Australia). The exclusive book appears in a circulation of just 500 copies and is a collector’s item.

In 1977, The Moorland and Tryon Gallery in London organises for the first time an exhibition with original Works for Keulemans. Nature in Art, the International Centre for Wildlife Art in Twig worth, owns three watercolours of him (”The Mobbing”, ”The Black-headed Gull Colony” and ”The Gannetry”).

Keulemans, who follows the style of Gould, describes himself as a scientific artist. He has hardly any time to experiment and in his work he has to choose between true to nature and true to life. Keulemans chooses for the first option, which is the reasons why some birds come across as formal and stiff. Appropriate is the comment that he had to depict the newly discovered animals in their natural pose with the help of badly stuffed examples.

After the death of this 28 years old wife Engelina, Keulemans is suddenly solely responsible for the upbringing of six children. Soon after, around 1877, when ”JGK” is granted the British nationality, he marries the Irish Arabell Miley, who gives birth to another eight children. As Keulemans grows older, his financial situation deteriorates. Although the artist comes across as a shy personality, his family considers him to be quite eccentric. Keulemans, who sometimes paints for days in his atelier just dressed in pants, speaks various languages, likes music, gazes at stars and is involved in spiritualism. Various birds fly around in his house and a starling even steals food from his plate.

Short before his death, he draws a watercolour of his own gravestone. The text is ”here lies the body of J.G. Keulemans, whose blood is suck by cons”. In small letters, he mentions the names of his, often wealthy customers, who kept him waiting for his money. At the 29th of March, Keulemans dies, but his words became not engraved on a tombstone, because his widow is just not wealthy enough to buy one. He is buried in a common grave in Ilford, a suburb of London.