Who are your favourite natural history painters?

[Carl Jones]

As a small child, I collected the picture cards given away in packets of Brook Bond tea; Tunnicliffe's excellent paintings provided the illustrations for the series:

Bird Portraits
British Wildlife
African Wildlife
Tropical Birds
Asian Wildlife

and these encouraged many children in the late 1950s / early 1960s to take an interest in animals.

I too collected these and still have the albums. Tunnicliffe really was an amazing



artist and illustrator who still has quite a following. Hs measured bird drawings are superb.

 

[Onychorhynchus coronatus]

I too collected these and still have the albums. Tunnicliffe really was an amazing

View attachment 462993 View attachment 462994

artist and illustrator who still has quite a following. Hs measured bird drawings are superb.

The Golden pheasant illustration is superb!

 

[AWP]

I love the work of Goya too (even if it is disturbing), these are also paintings that I used to spend time looking at when in the Prado, the black paintings are very haunting indeed.

The painting of Saturnus was one I knew from a book about Greek mythology for years, so I was pleased to see it for real, but is a horrific one. Next to that one, I remember the painting of the dog, depending on your point of view one of the most ridiculous or one of the most brilliant classic paintings.

 

[Crowthorne]

I remember seeing a retrospective at Reading Museum back in 2011/2012 of the work of Robert Gillmor. His lino-cuts especially have illustrated many publications

Robert Gillmor - Wikipedia

I also have a fondness for the work of David Shepherd

David Shepherd (artist) - Wikipedia

Many of the artists I find most inspiring in recent years though are the many independent artists on social media, particularly Twitter. @crow_artist is one that stands out

 

[Tetzoo Quizzer]

Lars Jonsson is another who paints real birds in real landscapes.

 

[Onychorhynchus coronatus]

The painting of Saturnus was one I knew from a book about Greek mythology for years, so I was pleased to see it for real, but is a horrific one. Next to that one, I remember the painting of the dog, depending on your point of view one of the most ridiculous or one of the most brilliant classic paintings.

I find all of Goya's work from the "black period" amazing but sinister, I think "the witches sabbath" is superb.

 

[Onychorhynchus coronatus]

Another 19th / early 20th century natural history artist who comes to mind is Willhelm Kuhnert who painted many striking paintings of African and Asian wildlife (unfortunately IMO mostly megafauna) in evocative landscapes.

Many of his paintings are very beautiful while others quite disturbing but there are also quite a few that are a bit samey (he clearly had an intense obsession with painting African lions) and repetitive.