Saturday, November 29, 2025

 Melchior d'Hondecoeter
(1636 - 1695)
 

Melchior d'Hondecoeter, Dutch animalier painter, was born in Utrecht and died in Amsterdam. After the start of his career, he painted virtually exclusively bird subjects, usually exotic or game, in park-like landscapes. Hondecoeter's paintings featured geese (brent goose, Egyptian goose and red-breasted goose), fieldfares, partridges, pigeons, ducks, northern cardinal, magpies and peacocks, but also African grey crowned cranes, Asian sarus cranes, Indonesian yellow-crested cockatoos, an Indonesian purple-naped lory and grey-headed lovebirds from Madagascar. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melchior_d'Hondecoeter


The Menagerie
c. 1690
Oil on canvas
135 x 116.5 cm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/object/De-menagerie--85b9126eea1ac505a9e362ec827feb02

Friday, November 28, 2025

Thomas William Wood
(1839 - 1910)
 

T. W. Wood was an English zoological illustrator responsible for the accurate drawings in major nineteenth-century works of natural history including Darwin's The Descent of Man and Wallace's The Malay Archipelago. He studied the courtship display behaviour of pheasants, observing them closely and publishing the first description of the double-banded argus pheasant. He illustrated many books, often of birds but also of moths and mammals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._W._Wood

Birds of Paradise
1862
Watercolor on medium, slightly textured, cream wove paper
35.6 x 25.4 cm
Yale Ceter for British Art, New Haven, CT, US
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:14150

Thursday, November 27, 2025

Thomas Hewes Hinckley
(1813 - 1896)
 

Thomas Hewes Hinckley was born in Milton, Massachusetts. Although he lived in the same house all of his life, Hinckley did travel widely from California to Europe.
Determined to be an artist, he began by painting signs and portraits. He soon turned his artistic attention to painting animals, and his first animal picture to gain attention was A Setter and Pups of 1843. By 1845, his animal paintings were selling well enough for him to be able to establish a studio, and he became famous for his cattle paintings.
 

https://artcloud.market/artist/416771


Disputed Game 
1850
Oil on canvas 
101 x 132 cm
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/disputed-game-10521 

Wednesday, November 26, 2025

Paul Martinson
(b. 1956)
 

An abiding interest in the surreal and the symbolic has seen Paul Martinson (b.1956 Aotearoa New Zealand) shift away from realism in search of a style that expresses the poetry of the human mind. While retaining a drawing-based figurative style, Martinson has embraced a personal, liberal approach to painting that allows a free flow of imagery and ideas.

Martinson’s works are held in the collections of Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Pōneke Wellington; Waikato Museum of Art and History, Kirikiriroa Hamilton; and Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History, Wairarapa.


https://sanderson.co.nz/artists/39-paul-martinson/overview/


Chatham Islands Raven. Corvus moriorum. From the series: Extinct Birds of New Zealand.
2004
23  × 29 cm
watercolour on paper
Te Papa, Wellington, New Zealand
https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/711028?page=1&rtp=1&ros=1&asr=1&assoc=all&mb=c

Tuesday, November 25, 2025

Raja Ravi Varma
1848 - 1906)
 

Raja Ravi Varm was an Indian painter. His works are one of the best examples of the fusion of European academic art with a purely Indian sensibility and iconography. He greatly enhanced his reach and influence as a painter and public figure by making affordable lithographs of his paintings available to the public. His lithographs increased the involvement of common people with fine arts and defined artistic tastes. Furthermore, his religious depictions of Hindu deities and works from Indian epic poetry and Puranas have received critical acclaim. He was part of the royal family of Parappanad, Malappuram district. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raja_Ravi_Varma

Damayanti And Hamsam
1899-1904
Oil on canvas
Sandeep & Gitanjali Maini Foundation, Bangalore, India

Monday, November 24, 2025

Neville Henry Cayley
(1854- 1903)

Neville Henry Peniston Cayley was an Australian painter who contributed greatly to public awareness of Australian birds through his meticulous and attractive watercolours of iconic species.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Henry_Cayley


Laughing Kookaburra, Dacelo novaeguineae
1892 - 1893
Watercolour on paper
94 x 63.8 cm 
Museums Victoria, Carlton, Australia
https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/1221868

Sunday, November 23, 2025

 Ogata Gekkō
(1859- 1920)
 

Ogata Gekkō was a Japanese artist best known as a painter and a designer of ukiyo-e woodblock prints. He was self-taught in art, won numerous national and international prizes, and was one of the earliest Japanese artists to win an international audience. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogata_Gekkō

Woman in front of Setting Sun
circa 1899
Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
23.8 x 33 cm
Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, United States
https://asia.si.edu/explore-art-culture/collections/search/edanmdm:fsg_S2003.8.1737/

 Melchior d'Hondecoeter (1636 - 1695)   Melchior d'Hondecoeter, Dutch animalier painter, was born in Utrecht and died in Amsterdam. ...