Robert Bateman (painter)
| Robert Bateman | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
24 May 1930 Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Residence | Saltspring Island, British Columbia |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Alma mater | Victoria College in the University of Toronto, Ontario College of Education |
| Known for | Painting, wildlife |
Robert Bateman, OC OBC RCA (born 24 May 1930) is a Canadian naturalist and painter, born in Toronto, Ontario.
Robert was always interested in art, but never intended to make a living from it. He was fascinated by the natural world in his childhood; he recorded the sightings of all of the birds in the area of his house in Toronto and did small paintings with birds in their habitats. He found inspiration from the Group of Seven; later, he became interested in making abstract paintings of nature. It was not until the mid-1960s that he changed to his present style, realism. In 1954, he graduated with a degree in geography from Victoria College in the University of Toronto. Afterwards, he attended Ontario College of Education. Starting in 1957, Bateman travelled around the world for 14 months in a Land Rover with his friend Bristol Foster. As they made their way through Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and Australia, Bateman painted and sketched what he saw.
Bateman became a high school teacher of art and geography, and continued focusing his life on art and nature. His work started to receive major recognition in the 1970s and 1980s. Robert Bateman's show in 1987, at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, drew the largest crowd for a living artist.
The majority of Bateman's paintings are acrylic on various media, and have been shown in major one-man exhibitions around the world. Bateman also has numerous books devoted to his works. After two decades as a high school teacher, he became a full-time artist in 1976. A year later Mill Pond Press started making signed, limited edition prints of some of his paintings; over the years, these prints resulted in millions of dollars being raised for environmental causes.
...
Wikipedia