George Miksch Sutton

Class of
1967
George Miksch Sutton

George Miksch Sutton

“My every visit with Dr. Sutton, without exception, brought new light to my understanding of birds.”
Laurie H. MacIvor, 1983

Biography

Dr. George Miksch Sutton was born in Nebraska and earned degrees at Texas Christian University, Bethany College in West Virginia, and Cornell University, where he was also the curator of birds from 1931 to 1945. On one of his many expeditions to study the world’s birds, he discovered the nests of the Blue Goose at Hudson Bay in 1930 and began expeditions into Oklahoma in 1932. His writings and paintings of birds are internationally famous and his reputation as an outstanding researcher in the field was matched by his “humanitarian approach” to science. He was the acclaimed author of such books as Eskimo Year, Iceland Summer, and Birds of the Wilderness. Dr. Sutton also served as the University of Oklahoma research professor of zoology, as an ornithologist for the Oklahoma Biological Survey, and as curator of birds for the Stovall Museum of Science and History (now the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History).

Fun fact

Dr. George Sutton was a bird curator at the Oklahoma City Zoo which dedicated the Galapagos Island bird sanctuary in his honor in 1980; and the Kirkpatrick Center housed 74 of his original and internationally famous watercolors of his Mexican bird paintings.

Oklahoma connections

Sutton came to the University of Oklahoma in Norman as curator of birds at the Stovall Museum of Science and History (now the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History).

Hometown

Norman

Profession

Ornithologist

Presenter

Born

1898

Died

1982
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