Robert Greenhalf SWLA

Statement

Robert was born in 1950 at Haywards Heath, Sussex, England. He studied at Eastbourne and Maidstone Colleges of Art, graduating in 1971 with a Diploma in Art and Design in Graphics.

Robert works in Woodcut, Oils and Watercolour. His subjects are mainly Birds and other Wildlife. He places great emphasis upon observing and sketching in the field and his Watercolours are frequently made directly from life. The Oils and Woodcuts are created in the studio, using field sketches and watercolours as reference.

Robert was elected a Member of the Society of Wildlife Artists 1981 and a member of the Royal Society of British Artists in 1982. The book Twentieth Century Wildlife Artists (1986, Croom Helm) and Modern Wildlife Painting (1998, Pica Press) by Nicholas Hammond, contain features on Robert's work, and further examples have appeared in approximately 30 other publications. 

He is a member of a group known as the Artists for Nature Foundation, a charity formed in 1991 to focus attention on threatened areas of the World. He visited Poland with them in 1992, Extremadura, Spain in 1994, Wexford, Ireland in 1995 and Utrecht, The Netherlands in 2005. The resulting highly acclaimed books contain several of his watercolours and sketches, together with comments on his experiences there.

He has also participated in the SWLA New Forest and Scottish Atlantic Oakwoods Projects which also resulted in books Aig an Oir At the Edge: The SWLA visit Scotland's Atlantic Oakwoods and Drawn to the Forest: The SWLA in the New Forest.

For four years, from 1993, Robert visited the Parc des Ecrins in the French Alps as Artist in Residence  In 1999 he was commissioned to provide illustrations of birds for their Atlas of the Invertebrates of the Parc des Ecrins.

He has also worked on a project in The Parc Natural Regional de Briere, Brittany. Robert's work has been shown in many mixed exhibitions and one man shows throughout the UK, Eire, France, Holland, Switzerland, Spain, the USA and Canada. 

He has also had work hung in the Summer Show at the Royal Academy on several occasions. His work is in Public and Private collections throughout the World.

Robert has written a book: Towards the Sea, an illustrated diary of his work throughout a typical year. This was published by Pica Press (now an imprint of Bloomsbury) in Autumn 1999 and is still in print.

In 2007, Baie de Somme & Rye Bay was published in France by Punch Editions. It is a collaboration between Robert and the French illustrator Noelle Le Guillouzic, a visual exploration of the two Bays on either side of the English Channel.

In 2014 he visited Senegal with three other Artists as part of a project on Bird Migration initiated by the British Trust for Ornithology.

Methodology

All of Robert's works start in the field with observing, sketching, and often watercolour studies of his subject from life. Sometimes watercolours are completed in the field, or he may work up compositions from sketches in the studio. Painting directly from life can add a spontaneity to the work, but often it is difficult to finish the picture without the light changing, or the subjects flying away! Robert also produces oils and woodcuts. Both of these techniques he uses in the studio, where memory and imagination can also inform the work. He paints his oils on primed hardboard. The woodcuts usually employ five or six blocks of plywood, hardboard or lino: one for each colour.

Bio

1950 Born in Haywards Heath, Sussex

1967-68 Pre-Diploma Course at Eastbourne School of Art

1968-71 Studied a Graphics Course, Maidstone College of Art, awarded a Diploma in Art & Design

1981 Elected a Member of the Society of Wildlife Artists

1982 Elected a Member of the Royal Society of British Artists