Robert Batemen

One of the world's most celebrated wildlife artists, Robert Bateman was born in Toronto in 1930 and spent much of his youth observing and admiring the wildlife of the Toronto ravines. He was inspired by the Group of Seven to create abstract paintings of nature, but he did not immediately pursue art as a career. Instead, he took a degree in geography at the University of Toronto in 1954, and later studied at the Ontario College of Education. He traveled around the world in a Land Rover in 1957-58, increasing his appreciation of cultural and natural heritage. He married Suzanne Bowerman in 1961, and the couple had three children.

Bateman spent 20 years as a high school teacher of art and geography in Thornhill and Burlington, Ontario, painting in his free time. He also taught for two years in Umuahia, Nigeria. In 1975 he married Birgit Freybe, with whom he later had two children. The following year he left teaching in order to paint full-time.

Initially, Bateman was a representational painter, but he explored impressionism, cubism and abstract expressionism before returning, in his early thirties, to the precise, luminous realism that was to make him famous. By the 1980s, his work was receiving wide recognition and was finding a place in many public and private collections and in numerous galleries and museums. His fame is due in part to his controversial decision to allow the sale of inexpensive reproductions of his work, which have been scorned by some critics as "overpriced posters that cheapen the legitimate art market.” Nevertheless, the reproductions – which are sold in galleries across Canada and abroad – have created a devoted audience for his work, and for the natural world that he celebrates, far beyond the traditional fine art market.

Bateman has had many one-man shows around the world, including a memorable exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. In 1987. He has received numerous honors, awards and honorary doctorates, and has been the subject of three films and four books. Three schools have been named for him. He was commissioned by the Governor-General of Canada to create a painting as the wedding gift for HRH The Prince Charles from the people of Canada, and in 1984 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian award.

A program particularly close to his heart is the Robert Bateman Get to Know Program. Bateman believes that the more students learn about the natural world and their local species, the more they will care and fight for preservation. Providing young people with opportunities to spend more time outdoors is a priority of the Get to Know Program.

In 2007, Robert Bateman and Birgit Freybe Bateman donated to Royal Roads University a collection of original art, giclées, photographs, sketch books and artifacts valued at more than $11 million. The collection will be the centrepiece of the Robert Bateman Centre, an internationally-oriented education centre devoted to the themes that have preoccupied Bateman throughout his life.

For many years the Batemans have made their home on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. Now in his eighties, Bateman continues to paint, speak and travel with undiminished vigour.

Robert Bateman's website

The Bateman Centre: Site 

Bateman's Ideas