ABUN Co-founder Kitty Harvill creates the 700th artwork in seven years of collaboration in support of World Albatross Day

No. 700!  Kitty Harvill with “Dreaming of Gough”, her painting of an Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross in acrylics on canvas, 40 x 50 cm, after a photograph by Chris Jones.  This photograph is by Laurie Smaglick Johnson

For the seventh consecutive year ACAP is working with the international collective, Artists and Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN), to produce artworks featuring albatrosses and petrels in support of World Albatross Day (WAD2026) on 19 June.  The first six ABUN Projects yielded no less than 697 artworks for ACAP’s use in supporting conservation.  A truly impressive number, that most likely has no competitor for any animal group across the whole world.

ACAP’s chosen theme for WAD2026 is “Habitat Restoration.  Two albatrosses are being featured, the Endangered Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross Thalassarche chlororhynchos and the Vulnerable Chatham Albatross T. eremita.  ABUN Project #52 kicked off on 19 February and runs until 19 April.  So far, eight artworks have been submitted; they can be viewed in a Photo Album on ACAP’s Facebook page; read about the first two (Nos. 698 and 699) here.  The third to be produced, and thus the 700th since 2020, is of an Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross entitled “Dreaming of Gough”, by happy happenstance painted by ABUN’s Co-founder and long-time supporter of the Albatross and Petrel Agreement, Kitty Harvill.

ACAP Latest News asked Kitty, who lives in Brazil, to write how her involvement with albatrosses started and how it developed into a six-year collaboration with ACAP.

Kitty writes: “It all began with WISDOM, and what worthy endeavour doesn’t?  When the devastating tsunami of 2011 hit Midway Atoll, author Darcy Pattison saw the opportunity to share the story of Wisdom, the Midway Albatross who had miraculously survived the storm along with her chick.  Not wanting to wait for her manuscript to languish on the desks of publishers for months, maybe years, Darcy set out to establish her own publishing company and enlisted me as the illustrator for her story.  Having been friends for years and sharing the same birthday, 28 June (only nine days after World Albatross Day), we had wanted to create a children’s book together for some time and I happily agreed.  ‘WISDOM the Midway Albatross: Surviving the Japanese Tsunami and other Disasters for over 60 Years’ was successfully published to excellent reviews in 2012.  Fast forward to late 2019.  Darcy and I were contacted by John Cooper, the ACAP Information Officer, who asked us to update the back matter in the book due to the upcoming launch of the first World Albatross Day on 19 June 2020.  I took the opportunity to tell John about Artists & Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN) that I co-founded in January 2016 and offer that our ABUN artists could create paintings and drawings that could assist in raising awareness for World Albatross Day 2020.  I sensed some hesitancy on his part at first, but ABUN Project #30 launched on 01 January 2020 and produced 324 artworks by 77 artists of all the 22 albatross species listed by ACAP.  Seven posters were created from selected artworks and made available to the public free of charge.  My own painting that year, a watercolour, included all 22 species.  I’ve led an ABUN Project for World Albatross the Day every year since then, except for 2024 and 2025 when our ABUN Administrator, Marion Schön, had the honour to do so.”

“We have become good friends”.  Kitty Harvill and John Cooper aboard the MSC Musica on the Flock to Marion AGAIN! 2025

Kitty continues: “In January last year, I was invited to be ‘Artist-in-Residence’ on the Flock to Marion AGAIN! 2025 voyage.  I produced eight watercolours before the trip, donated the, upon arrival on the ship and created an 11” x 14” acrylic on linen painting each day, also donated to the important cause of the Saving Marion Island’s Seabirds: The Mouse-Free Marion (MFM) Project.  Albatross conservation has, over the years, become a very important cause for me and it all started with a devastating event.  It is a true ‘Ashes to Beauty’ story and our ABUN paintings keep rising like a Phoenix from those ashes, with now over 700 artworks available to ACAP to support the conservation of the world’s albatrosses and petrels.”

An aerial view of Gough Island appears in the albatross’s eye in Kitty Harvill’s painting

With thanks to Kitty Harvill and Marion Schön (in 2024 and 2025) for administering the six projects – and for contributing their own art.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 04 March 2026