Artists

Exhibition Artists

Andrew Squire

Deceptively simple, Andrew's imagery often uses animals and birds capturing their spirit within an open, vibrant and undisturbed space. In recent years he has exhibited widely, and two solo exhibitions have been held at Thompson's Marylebone Gallery raising funds for World Land Trust. Two of his designs have been used for WLT's 2011 Christmas cards.

Andrew Squire's website: www.andrewsquire.com

Andrew Haslen

Andrew Haslen has lived and worked all his life in East Anglia, and from an early age began painting wildlife subjects. While he prefers using watercolour, he also works with other mediums including oils and is particularly well-known for his large-scale, hand-coloured lino cuts of British wildlife.

A longstanding member of the Society of Wildlife Artists Andrew is several times winner of the Royal Society for Nature Conservation 'Natural World' Art Award, (1992 & 1997 and Runner-up in 1993). He also won the RSPB Art Award in 1996 and 1999 and has exhibited widely in the UK, and also in the USA.

Living in the countryside, he enjoys watching and illustrating the wildlife he encounters and has planned his garden with wildlife in mind, leaving areas to go wild, and planting trees and digging ponds. While Andrew's work is always wildlife-related he has particular passions, one being hares. Always intrigued by the behaviour and mythology surrounding hares, Andrew had the opportunity to rear leverets when he was presented with orphans not knowing where they came from. This resulted in his recent book: The Winter Hare. He also loves painting birds with colourful plumages such as woodpeckers and kingfishers.

Andrew is co-owner of the Wildlfe Art Gallery in Lavenham which opened in 1988, specialising in 20th Century and contemporary wildlife art. The gallery also publishes a large selection of beautifully presented books, including The Winter Hare. This and a selection of his other books are available for purchase in the World Land Trust gallery.

Over the years Andrew has kindly donated the use of his images for World Land Trust Christmas cards, with The Fox in Winter, Winter Thrushes and various hare images being firm favourites.

Visit the Wildlife Art Gallery at: 97 High Street, Lavenham, Suffolk CO10 9PZ.

www.wildlifeartgallery.com
www.andrewhaslen.co.uk

Jason Gathorne-Hardy

Jason Gathorne-Hardy grew up and lives in Suffolk. He trained as a Zoologist at Oxford University, but his fascination with livestock and wildlife inspired him to experiment in art, initially with wood carving and later with graphite and natural pigments. He had his first solo exhibition at Reed's Wharf Gallery in London in 1995 and since then he has worked along the Thames, in Sussex, Essex, Wales and New Zealand, returning to Suffolk in 2001. He now lives in the upper reaches of the Alde Valley.

He likes to sit with the animals he draws and this close proximity enables him an intimate view which might, for instance, include cow dribble. His sure hand and sharp senses produce a definite handwriting in his work that connects us to his subject.

The Alde Valley Spring Festival website (Jason is the festival founder): www.aldevalleyspringfestival.co.uk

Bruce Pearson

Bruce Pearson has been fascinated by wildlife and the natural world for 35 years. He has paintings and illustrations in many private collections in several countries, as well as museums and institutions. Former president of the Society of Wildlife Artists, he is currently a WLT trustee, and recently took part in a field visit to Zambia where WLT is involved in conservation initiatives. He takes every opportunity to work out in the wild where the rhythm and restlessness of wildlife and elemental landscapes - and sometimes people - interact, creating powerful images and dramatic themes. Bruce is a trustee of the WLT.

Bruce Pearson's website: www.brucepearson.net

Joe Bunni

Joe Bunni is a 2011 category winner in the Natural History Museum's Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Living and working in Paris, his passion is underwater photography and he aims to spend several weeks every year diving with his camera. He has taken his passion further by forming "SOS Oceans", an association committed to the conservation of the seas. One of their projects includes creating a marine reserve off the Colombian coast in South America.

Joe Bunni's website: www.joebunni.com

Ortaire de Coupigny

Ortaire de Coupigny lives near the sea in Brittany and is a regular visitor to the fish market in Lorient. He makes moulds of fish which, several stages later, are represented  in sardine cans. He is also a portrait painter and has exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery Annual Competition.

Ortaire de Coupigny's website: www.ortaire.odexpo.com

Other Artists

Alan Hunt

Alan has developed his own approach to painting, without the need for sketching a layout before starting. He prepares a board with great care, smoothing before priming it with three coats of Gesso to make a glass smooth finish. Then it is ready to paint.

Now concentrating solely on endangered species he aims to bring as much attention as possible to their plight. "Humans are destroying wildlife and the planet, and we are animals, too," says Alan. "If my son doesn't get to see half the wildlife in his lifetime I've seen, I'll feel very guilty. Rather than become famous as a painter, I would like to be remembered as someone who tried to make people aware of the need to protect the environment and the planet."

Alan Hunt's website: www.alanmhuntwildlifeartist.co.uk

Henry Bradbury

In 1853 an Austrian printer, Alois Auer, published a book describing a nature printing processes which he had patented in 1852. It was from this publication that the English printer Henry Bradbury learned how to print his two volumes - one on British Seaweeds and the other on Ferns, published in 1855. Bradbury apparently patented his method of printing without any acknowledgement to Auer, from who he had learned the basis of it. In the ensuing controversy, when Auer accused him of being a drunkard and a liar, Bradbury became depressed - perhaps also affected by working with so much lead - at the age of 29 committed suicide by drinking prussic acid mixed with soda water.

J. G. Millais

John Guille 'Johnny' Millais, (1865-1931), was the son of the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais. He grew up in Scotland and after a brief career in the army, spent much of his life travelling and painting wildlife and the natural world. He was one of the founders (1903) of the Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire, now known as Fauna and Flora International. His best known works are ducks and British mammals.

Joseph Smit

Joseph Smit was a Dutch zoological illustrator. He received his first commission from Hermann Schlegel at the Leiden Museum to work on the lithographs for a book on the birds of the Dutch East Indies. In 1866 he was invited by Philip Sclater to do the lithography for Sclater's Exotic Ornithology. He also did the lithography for Joseph Wolf's Zoological Sketches, as well as Daniel Giraud Elliot's monographs on the Phasianeidae and Paradiseida. Beginning in the 1870s, he worked on the Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum (1874-1898), and later on Lord Lilford's Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British Islands.