William Matthew Hart was an English bird illustrator and lithographer who worked for John Gould

John Gould

John Gould was an English ornithologist and bird artist. The Gould League in Australia was named after him. His identification of the birds now nicknamed "Darwin's finches" played a role in the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection...

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Hart started medical training, but was unable to complete his studies for financial resons. He began working for Gould in 1851, beginning an association that was to last thirty years. Early during this period he made the patterns for the lithographic

Lithography

Lithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...

 plates for Gould’s work on hummingbirds, as well as working on The Birds of Great Britain with Henry Constantine Richter

Henry Constantine Richter

Henry Constantine Richter was a zoological illustrator.Richter was employed by John Gould to assist with the illustrations of his zoological works after the death of Gould's wife Elizabeth...

. By 1870 Hart had become Gould's chief artist and lithographer. After Gould's death in 1881, Hart was employed by Richard Bowdler-Sharpe of the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

 to complete Gould's work on the birds of New Guinea and to produce illustrations for Sharpe’s monograph on the birds-of-paradise.