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Frederick William Frohawk (1861-1946) Frederick William Frohawk (1861-1946) Frederick William Frohawk was born in 1861 and, following a private school education, worked as a natural history artist. Today, he is best known for his illustrations of birds and insects, although he also drew many other natural history subjects. Frohawk worked in a variety of mediums including oils, watercolours and pencils. He was also an accomplished lithographer and wood engraver. He was a popular artist for such magazines as The Field as he could easily turn his hand to illustrate a range of subjects. Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild appreciated Frohawk's talents, and commissioned him for several pieces of work. Frohawk was therefore the natural choice when Rothschild was looking for an artist to illustrate his paper on the tree kangaroos. Frohawk would usually try to portray his subjects as in life, and he would pay frequent visits to London Zoo to illustrate new arrivals there. But, as in this example of his work, most of the tree kangaroos were drawn from museum specimens.
This painting of Matschie's tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus matschiei xanthotis) is one of 27 paintings commissioned by Lionel Walter Rothschild when he was studying the tree kangaroo group. This drawing was made from a skin in Rothschild's collection kept at his Zoological Museum in Tring, Hertfordshire. The specimen was collected from the Cromwell Mountains in northeast New Guinea, at an altitude of about 7,000 feet (over 2000 m) in June 1931 by F. Shaw Mayer. Flannery et al. (1996, p.12) wrote: "Without doubt the finest collection of tree-kangaroo illustrations are those published in Rothschild and Dollman's (1936) monograph, which was illustrated by F.W. Frohawk. The work's 16 full-colour plates doubtless brought the full diversity and beauty of these creatures to the attention of European scientists for the first time. The work is particularly important because it illustrates eight of the type specimens. The only faults one can find with it is that occasionally the postures are odd or awkward, and that some specimens (probably drawn from study skins) have oddly shaped heads." It is not known why this watercolour was not included in the publication.
Tree kangaroos live in mountainous rainforests in New Guinea and Queensland, Australia. They have large, clawed forepaws for clasping tree trunks and use their long tails to brace themselves, as they move with great agility from tree to tree. They feed on leaves and fruit. They usually have one young which lives in the mother's pouch for more than a year. Matschie's tree kangaroo is classified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) 2003 Red List as endangered. The Tree Kangaroo Conservation Programme (TKCP) in Papua New Guinea works to protect the species.
The Frederick Frohawk Drawings Collection The library at the Natural History Museum houses a number of artwork collections by F. W. Frohawk. They include hundreds of examples of watercolours of butterflies, birds and mammals.
Exhibition and publication details This particular drawing is not known to have been exhibited or published. Rothschild, L. W. & Dollman, J. G. (1936) The genus Dendrolagus. Transactions of the Zoological Society of London, vol. 21, pp. 477-548, pls 35-57.
References and further reading Chatfield, J. (1987) F.W. Frohawk, His Life and Work. Crowood Press: Marlborough, Wilts. 184pp. Flannery, T. F., Martin, R. & Szalay, A. (1996) Tree-Kangaroos: ACurious Natural History. Reed: Port Melbourne, Vic. 202pp. Jackson, C. E. (1975) Bird Illustrators: Some Artists in Early Lithography. H.F. & G. Witherby: London. pp. 103-107.
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