People passionate about nature

Angus Shortt

Ralph Bird Award recipient 1987

Angus was born in Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, September 25, 1908. He and his family came to Canada in 1910, settling in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

His mother was a skilled artist, specializing in flower studies in both watercolours and oils, and also was a gifted china painter. She encouraged Angus’s interest in drawing and painting. His great grandfather, James Angus, from whom he gets his name, was a Scotsman and a designer with one of the Belfast linen manufacturers, specializing in decorative tablecloths, etc.

In 1917, the family moved from downtown Winnipeg to Deer Lodge, St. James, on the western outskirts of the city. The new home was situated in an area of unspoiled woodland and prairie, affording excellent opportunity for studying natural history.

Drawings of birds took precedence and a first effort, the various Manitoba woodpeckers done in watercolour on a sheet of cartridge paper, was pinned up on the classroom wall by his teacher in Grade 5. Another early study of birds, also a watercolour, was painted on the back of a Hudson’s Bay Company calendar. This effort featured 24 different species. Painted in 1922, it is now a treasured memento of those early days. His first duck painting was a pair of mallards, done in 1929.

After Linwood High School in 1926, Angus started to serve an apprenticeship as a wood engraver with Brigdens of Winnipeg, at $6 per week of 44 hours. With the onset of the Depression in 1931, wood engraving was phased out as a method of catalogue for illustration and he was laid off. Efforts to find other employment in the commercial art field were unavailing as jobs were not to be had. However, encouraged by his father, he resumed study and sketching of birds. The well-known Winnipeg naturalists, B. W. Cartwright and A. G. Lawrence, gave invaluable advice and assistance at this time.

A membership in the Natural History Society of Manitoba (now Nature Manitoba) laid the foundation of a long and fruitful association during which he served in various executive capacities in the Ornithological Section, culminating in his election as President of the Society from 1947-1949. He gave many talks on birds, all of which were illustrated with his own hand-painted slides. These were painted in watercolour on illustration board 5” by 5” and projected on the screen through an epidiascope.

Angus raised money for notebooks and art supplies from the sale of small watercolours of birds and flowers, including Christmas cards. In 1935, with the formation of the Manitoba Museum, Angus was appointed the first Artist-Technician. In this post, he was responsible for bird and mammal exhibits, as well as for co-operative work in the displays for other branches of natural history. Notably, he was involved in the restoration and assembly of a fossilized plesiosaur skeleton, an 18-foot-long aquatic reptile from Treherne, Manitoba. This latter work was carried out under the direction of Professor E. I. Leith of the University of Manitoba.

Working on a shoestring budget in those days, much ingenuity and imagination was needed. Nevertheless, Angus completed several group displays in large showcases in the former Civic Auditorium, now the Archives of Manitoba. These displays included Grant’s Lake (featuring blue and snow geese), an early settler’s cabin, and a miniature (to scale) of the famous Indigenous petroforms in the Whiteshell, following a canoe survey into the area with W. H. Rand and B. W. Cartwright.

During the summers of 1937-38, Angus was seconded to the National Museum of Canada to carry out ornithological surveys under the late P. A. Taverner, in western Manitoba from The Pas south to Riding Mountain. From 1937-38, he illustrated a series of articles on Manitoba wildlife, written by B. W. Cartwright and published by the Winnipeg Tribune. For a number of years wrote the popular bird column, “Wild Wings”, for the same newspaper, following the retirement of B. W. Cartwright. In September 1938, he went to New York to work as a taxidermist for the American Museum of Natural History under a special four-month grant. In January 1939, he accepted the position of Artist-Technician with the newly formed waterfowl conservation agency, Ducks Unlimited (Canada). In 1965, became their Art Director.

In March of 1939 he married Betsy Haak who was also an active member of the Natural History Society of Manitoba. Their marriage was a happy one from the beginning, as they shared together a deep and lasting love of nature. Betsy has, over the years, become widely known as a judge of flowers and flower arrangements. For 18 years, she served as one of the top judges at the annual International Flower Show in Winnipeg as well as at many other points in the province. Both she and Angus contributed articles to the Prairie Gardener Magazine, the official publication of the Manitoba Horticultural Association.

During these years, their friendship with the late Hector Macdonald, who was supervisor of Winnipeg Parks (an expert on wild flowers of Manitoba, and a professional horticulturalist trained in Scotland) led to their experimentation with colour photography of nature, chiefly of wild flowers. Angus presented talks using these slides to many different organizations throughout the province. This created a further interest in the flowers in the parks. As a result, the Twomey brothers, Gerry and Patrick, of T&T Seed Co. supplied plants and bulbs for the Shortt garden so Betsy could experiment with cultivation and Angus could photograph for T&T catalogues. This was an interesting phase as many unusual varieties were involved and spread pleasure and renewed interest with each succeeding year.

A son, Terrence Adrian, born in 1947, also chose nature as his field, graduating in 1969 with a Bachelor of Science Honours degree in Microbiology from the University of Manitoba. He, too, is skilled at drawing and has an artist’s good eye for colour an composition.

Angus’s work with Ducks Unlimited included preparation of coloured maps and graphics for use in its annual full-length colour silent films. DU continued this work into the era of sound films. The other important part of his job was with donor projects. Sponsored by individuals, groups and States, this program proved immensely popular and resulted in preparation of photo presentation brochures. Each was designed with a hand-lettered cover on which was painted a pair of ducks, generally in flight and representing a sporting duck common to the area of the sponsors. In effect, each brochure was one-of-a-kind and recipients prized these. Over the 34 years to retirement in October 1973, Angus produced a total of 270 of these colourful donor books.

Early in his career, Angus lost the sight in his right eye, which was a traumatic experience as the future of his art seemed in jeopardy. However, he surmounted this threat and was able to continue his excellent work.

Popular images of waterfowl for Ducks Unlimited found quick acceptance in the United States. Tom Main, then General Manager, gave whole-hearted encouragement and was largely instrumental in establishing Angus’s popularity among American duck hunters. Contacts with U.S. and Canadian sportsmen led to a steady demand for paintings of ducks and geese. Aside from these commissions, Angus found time to paint and donate pictures to various Ducks Unlimited State Committees to be used in fundraising programs and dinner auctions, raising thousands of dollars. The DU directors unanimously approved a proposal that he devote the entire year prior to retirement to painting these exclusively.

In 1946, a series of Angus’s Manitoba wildflower and bird paintings was sent on a world tour in connection with a South African Wildlife Conservation program. That same year, he was awarded the Bronze Medal by the Natural History Society of Manitoba for original research in ornithology and for his work as a bird illustrator. In 1947, he was elected member of the American Ornithologists Union.

In 1948, he was commissioned by Sports Afield Magazine to illustrate a series of articles on ducks and geese. These were written by B. W. Cartwright, then Chief Naturalist with Ducks Unlimited. This series was later issued in a deluxe bound edition, Know Your Ducks and Geese, now a collector’s item. There are four printings of this book.

In 1962, Angus designed a set of 12 silver medallions commemorating Confederation. He based his designs on floral emblems of each of the 10 provinces and 2 territories. The reverse side showed the map of each province with its date of entry into Confederation. In 1963, Angus’s design for a 15-cent airmail stamp featuring four Canada Geese in flight was selected by The Canada Post Office. This stamp was overwhelmingly rated the best stamp design by that year’s annual London Free Press stamp popularity poll. In conjunction with this stamp, he produced over 500 miniatures of this design for stamp collectors, as well as several oil paintings.

A one-man show of Angus’s original paintings was held in February 1969, in the new offices of Ducks Unlimited in Fort Garry, Winnipeg. In 1969, Angus was presented with the Good Citizenship Award by the Manitoba Tourist and Convention Association for his work in the field of conservation. In 1970, he was honoured by the Manitoba Historical Society with the Centennial Gold Medal of Remembrance also for his conservation work.

In 1971, Angus began Marsh World, a series of black and white illustrations accompanied by a brief text describing the wildlife of a marsh – birds, mammals, plants, insects, etc. Issued weekly by DU, this popular series ran for 4 years and appeared in over 1000 newspapers, weeklies and wildlife magazines across Canada. In 1975 and 1991, a selection of 158 images was published in book form.

Angus served as Honorary President of the Manitoba Naturalists Society from 1965-1974, and received an Honorary Life Membership in 1974. He was exhibited at the American Ornithologists Union meeting at Toronto in 1933, in Regina in 1958, and in Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 1972. Angus had a special exhibit at the Crafts Guild of Manitoba in 1973, and exhibited at the opening of Loch Wildlife Art Gallery in 1976. From January to March 1975, he exhibited in Alloway Hall in the Museum of Man and Nature. On opening night, there was a lineup of 1000 people extending outside the building in -15 F, to see his paintings. The Museum reported this was the best turnout the Gallery had ever had.

Angus painted a series of 30 miniatures in watercolour for a Michigan member of Ducks Unlimited, who took them to Japan as gifts for Japanese businessmen. These were of colourful song birds of Manitoba. Following this, he completed a similar order of 15 for a Finance Minister who was using them for the same purpose on visits to Japan and Europe. These miniatures were much in demand. In 1942, T. C. Main, DU’s Canadian General Manager, chose one of Angus’s early canvasback paintings for presentation to the retiring Ducks Unlimited Canada President, W. C. Fisher of Calgary. This set a precedent, and many of the succeeding presidents and directors were recipients of one of his originals on their retirement. 

Angus’s canvasback paintings continue to be his favourite duck in popularity with sportsmen, second only to the mallard, followed by the pintail, widgeon, scaup and black duck. In recent years, his Canada Goose paintings have become great favourites. In 1981, Angus Shortt was the recipient of DU Canada’s Art Awards (Artist of the Year) in recognition of his artistic ability and contributions to the preservation of North America’s wildlife heritage.

Mr. Shortt’s contribution to natural history has been two-fold. As an ornithologist, he has few equals in the Prairies, and became a leading authorities on birds of prey. As an artist, he gained international recognition for his paintings on birds and flowers. Angus was an active MNS member since his youth in 1926. He served in various capacities, gave regular talks to members on numerous topics, and even re-designed the Society’s logo. The MNS recognized this by naming Angus Honorary President for many years.