Guest Post by Elizabeth G. Macalaster

(Adobe Illustrator AI-Generated Image)

When Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a young boy in Malagá, Spain, all he wanted to do was draw or cut out animals from paper. The only way his parents could convince him to attend school was to let him bring along one of the family’s pet pigeons. While the pigeon walked around his desk and cooed, Pablo drew it over and over — instead of paying attention to his lessons. Pablo also knew that with a treasured pigeon tucked under his jacket, he wouldn’t have to wait even a minute for his father to pick him up when school was done. Then he could get home and back to his drawings.

Pablo’s father, Don José Ruiz Blasco, was an artist and art teacher, and he revered pigeons, which were part of the family, flying freely through the house. Don José was Pablo’s first teacher and showed his son how to draw with precise realism. Pablo drew pigeons and human hands over and over until Don José was satisfied that he could draw accurately. When he was only nine, Pablo began sketching pigeons. He could start anywhere on the bird — its belly, its tail, its wings — and in one continuous line, draw a remarkable likeness.

Though Don José wanted to control his son’s talent and envisioned him becoming a successful academic painter, Pablo had other ideas. And at age 18, in a mark of independence from his father’s influence, Pablo stopped signing his work “Ruiz,” and instead used his mother’s last name — Picasso.

No matter what new medium Picasso explored, it always included pigeons and doves.

Pablo Picasso went on to become one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. While his father had painted scenes exactly as he saw them, Pablo surprised and even shocked the world with his art, daring people to see the world in new ways. He experimented with many different styles and materials to express his ideas. Yet no matter what new medium Picasso explored, it always included pigeons and doves. His bond with these birds had been formed as a boy and it stayed with him his entire life, inspiring his work and bringing him joy.

Picasso had witnessed the atrocities of both the Spanish Civil War and World War II, leading him to join the French Communist Party, becoming a passionate pacifist. In 1949, the artist made a lithograph of a pure white Milanese pigeon that had been given to him by his famous contemporary, Henri Matisse. The World Peace Conference was being held in Paris that year, and Picasso’s pigeon image was chosen for the poster advertising the conference.

Picasso named his daughter Paloma, Spanish for dove.

With that poster, pigeons were no longer just a fond subject for Pablo to paint or draw. His rendering of the Milanese pigeon became universally known as the dove of peace. Picasso created many more variations on this theme for other peace conferences and movements. An iconic symbol of the period, the dove was used frequently in the peace movement and as an emblem of hope during the Cold War. (That same year, 1949, Pablo’s daughter was born, and he named her Paloma, Spanish for dove.)

In 1955, Picasso moved to the South of France to La Californie, a large villa overlooking Cannes. Here, he built a dovecote so he could closely observe the daily activities of his feathered companions. Once, during a break from other work, he painted nine colorful oils of young pigeons perched in and around his Cannes studio. Pigeons and doves remained lifelong muses. In 1962, he designed a colored lithograph of a dove to advertise another peace conference in France; this “Blue Dove” is one of Pablo Picasso’s best-known works, inspiring people around the world.

NOTE: Picasso’s works are copyrighted until 2043 so images of his numerous pigeon paintings and drawings cannot be included in this article. But you can view many of his fabulous pigeon- and dove-themed pieces online here. And don’t miss this lovely 30-second Instagram video.

Guest Post by Elizabeth G. Macalaster

Editor’s Note: Palomacy Pigeon & Dove Adoptions appreciates this unique story as part of pigeon history but opposes using pigeons and doves for business, sport, or hobby. 

Dr. Charles Lang, a country doctor in upstate New York at the end of the 19th century, had an idea—commission his flock of homing pigeons as nurses!

Practicing rural medicine in the late 1800s and early 1900s was a challenge. Telephones were rare, so house calls were almost daily occurrences. Doctors traveled to a patient by foot, horseback, horse and buggy—and sleigh in the winter. They struggled down poorly maintained roads, sometimes through blinding snow, storms, and floods. Patients lived dozens of miles from a town, and from each other, so if two patients were critically ill, the distance between them made daily visits and staying updated with their progress nearly impossible. That is, until homing pigeons flew in to help.

The use of homing pigeons as a wide-spread method of communication didn’t exist in the United States until the mid-1800s. It didn’t take long for rural physicians throughout the United States to see the value of using homing pigeons to carry critical updates about their patients. Dr. Charles Lang was particularly enthusiastic about his flying nurses. He housed about 20 pigeons in a loft outside his home in Meridian, NY, and always took a few birds with him when he set out on house calls. After a visit, he’d leave a couple of pigeons with the family of each patient about whose condition he wished to be posted. On a tiny piece of paper, a family member wrote records of time, pulse, temperature, and respiration—whatever Dr. Lang needed to know about that particular patient. The note was rolled up tightly and tucked inside the bird’s leg band. Once released, the pigeon sped home to Dr. Lang’s loft.

In this way, Dr. Lang was kept abreast of a patient’s condition. He could return to the house if needed, or stay at his town office if not. He was able to visit patients while feeling sure that when he returned reports on others would be waiting.

Dr. Lang published many articles in medical journals extolling the value of homing pigeons to medical practices and often included stories about his birds’ service. One story described the sudden collapse of a man with severe diphtheria-like symptoms. Dr. Lang had only just left the man’s house where he’d been feeling fine. Fortunately, a couple of pigeons stayed behind. Soon after Dr. Lang reached home, a pigeon landed at his loft with a desperate note from the family. The good doctor hurried back, and eventually, his treatment was successful. But had it not been for the pigeon’s unerring flight, the man might have died.

Another story included a note about young Bessie, who had been suffering from dysentery for weeks. Dr. Lang must have felt not only relief, but gratitude for the work of his couriers.

April 2, 1895, 5 pm
Meridian, New York
Dr. Lang: Bessie has enjoyed the same favorable conditions since your visit. The bowels have not moved since morning (8:30). She has had portions of four cooked eggs, and about the same allowance of beef as usual beside two raw eggs. She was very glad to have grandpa bring his paper and sit in her room after dinner. I wish you could have enjoyed a glimpse of them with me a short time after – grandpa sound asleep, resting after his morning’s work, and the little one cuddled in her bed enjoying her needed rest. She has been quiet since waking, and I feel she is improving every hour. M.C.F.¹

On his next visit to Bessie, Dr. Lang likely brought along one of his pigeons, as the soft, gentle birds always brought smiles to his young patients. Dr. Lang had discovered the magic of pigeons. Much more than high speed communication, they provided comfort and cheer to his patients, and sometimes that was all he could offer.

In his articles, Dr. Lang also described how to care for pigeons and train them, and he emphasized the importance of forming a bond with the birds, believing pigeons were as beneficial to himself as to his patients. He claimed they made him feel fresher and stronger, and thus better able to serve his community. And sometimes they made the difference between life and death.

¹ Maryland Medical Journal, Medicine and Surgery, Vol. 39, June 25, 1898. p. 670

Elizabeth G. Macalaster is the author of “War Pigeons: Winged Couriers in the U.S. Military, 1878-1957”, the first complete accounting of the remarkable service of homing pigeons with American armed forces, from its fledgling beginnings after the Civil War, to the birds’ invaluable role in communications through both world wars and beyond. “War Pigeons” chronicles a poignant and enduring legacy.