Bruce Bartrug has been a naturalist and artist with a special interest in birds since childhood. He still has his first oil painting,completed when age 13 and containing (what else?) three birds. Bruce studied ornithology at Louisiana State University under George Lowery and John O’Neill, and completed a B.S. in Pharmacy at that same university. Later he pursued illustration at the Maine College of Art. Artists with whom Bruce has studied include Kathleen Galligan, Linda Funk, and Dolores Santoliquido.
Bruce lives in a 150-year-old farm house in rural Maine and spends part of each year abroad, returning with (yet more) sketches and photographs. Although Bruce is partial to the neotropics and has traveled widely in Central and South America, he has also journeyed to Cambodia, India, and Namibia. He is a member of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators and various neotropical ornithology organizations.
Bruce has paintings and drawings in collections in South Africa, Chile, Argentina, and Ecuador. In addition, his work has been reproduced in El Hornero, the journal of the Asociacion Ornitologica del Plata, and in several publications of the Union de Ornitologos de Chile. He has illustrated two books, Under the African Air and Rio de Dios, both by Charles Hood.