Society of Wildlife Artists

The Society of Wildlife Artists ( SWLA ) is a British artist association of painters representing the wildlife and plant life. It belongs to the Federation of British Artists (FBA ) and has its headquarters in the Mall Galleries in London, where also the other of the nine members of the Federation of British Artists are housed.

History

The Society of Wildlife Artists was founded in 1964 to raise public awareness of the beauty and vulnerability of wildlife. In the late 1950s the works of plant and animal painters were not easily accessible, although at that time the interest in natural history grew steadily. Therefore, organized Robert Gillmor and Eric Ennion with the enthusiastic support of Peter Scott and Keith Shackleton in the Reading Art Gallery 1960 exhibition of contemporary representations of birds. The Director of the Art Exhibitions Bureau, Maurice Bradshaw, became aware of the issue and then sent them for a year on tour.

The interest of the province Galleries was so great that the tour was extended for another year. R. B. Talbot - Kelly and Maurice Wilson got in as organizers, thus helping to accelerate the formation of a company. The first exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists took place in August in 1964 in London and was opened by James Fisher. At the exhibition were 149 works by 35 founding members, including Donald Watson, to see eight of which today are members of the Society. By the year 2004 482 works were selected for the annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries. The company had been 76 elected and 6 associate members.