There is a lot of superb contemporary realism being made these days; this article by Allison Malafronte shines light on a gifted individual.

For more than 15 years, Fan Yu (b. 1985) was a successful groomer and handler of show dogs in competitions and seminars around the world. In 2009, little did he know that his innate artistic talent was about to intersect with his current career and lead him on a new path of creating clay and bronze sculptures of dogs.

Fan grew up in China’s culturally rich Imperial City, Beijing, in a visually sophisticated family. His parents dedicated most of their lives to Chinese classical architecture and exposed Fan to aesthetics at an early age. As a child obsessed with animals, he often accompanied his father to the zoo with a sketchbook in hand, and he amassed a large collection of animal books to sketch from as well.

As he got older, Fan realized the pressures of the Chinese education system didn’t suit him, so he pursued other paths. When an injury kept him bedridden for half a year, he began learning about purebred dogs through a book his father had bought him. Once recovered, Fan took a dog show handling class in Beijing and slowly began entering the profession.

In 2009 Fan created his first sculpture of the striking Kerry Blue Terrier “Mick” — the winner of several Best in Show awards — to present to Mick’s professional handler, Bill McFadden, who has long inspired him. Fan’s intimate understanding of the canine spirit, attained through many years of grooming and handling, allowed his hands to sculpt with informed ease, and the results were not only eye-opening for him but also for the public.

He began receiving numerous inquiries and commissions from owners, breeders, and kennel clubs worldwide. Clearly Fan had found his niche and started dedicating more time to his new passion, finally leaving the world of professional dog handling in 2017. “The hustle and bustle, triumphs, and frustration of my dog show career inspired me to follow my intuition, and once that intuition was awakened, I just followed the momentum,” the artist says.

Today Fan resides in Claremont, California, with his wife, Amy, and his sculptures are celebrated both in the dog show community and in the field of fine art. Particularly rewarding is the fact that, every day, Fan gets to create art that is a culmination of his lifelong interests and passions.

“The loyalty, kindness, simplicity, and directness I see in dogs’ eyes has always moved me,” the artist explains. “Every time I finish a sculpture, I feel like it has also sculpted a piece of my inner soul. As time passes, the dogs have sculpted me into who I am. In a sense, we are one.”

Attention Art Collectors!
May 20-22, 2025: Visit the Plein Air Convention & Expo’s robust pop-up art gallery at the Nugget Casino Resort in Reno, Nevada, where hundreds of artists, including our master faculty, will have studio and plein air works on display and ready to purchase. Register for the full event at PleinAirConvention.com now.

View more artist and collector profiles here at FineArtConnoisseur.com.

Wildlife Art on View (and much more):
Southeastern Wildlife Exposition
Charleston, South Carolina
sewe.com
February 14-16, 2025

The Southeastern Wildlife Exposition (SEWE) is ready to celebrate its 43rd anniversary and fill the streets of downtown Charleston with animal lovers of all stripes. Once again, SEWE will program a fine art gallery and an exhibition of artisans and craftsmen alongside its popular demonstrations of dogs and birds of prey in action, plus lively displays by conservation organizations and the South Carolina Department of Agriculture. Drawing at least 50,000 visitors each year, these activities highlight the urgent need to protect wildlife and preserve our natural resources.

The art exhibition features more than 90 painters and sculptors, both established and emerging. They range from the hand-carved feather artistry of sculptor Chris Maynard (Olympia, Washington) to international big game painters like Grant Hacking (South Africa) and Audubon-inspired artists such as Art LaMay (Palm Coast, Florida).

This year’s featured artist is Ray Brown, whose charcoal drawing “Veiled” (above) will be visible everywhere on the festival’s official poster. Illustrated here, this original wildlife art will be on display at the Gallery by SEWE, then auctioned during the VIP gala and sale on February 13. Brown has joined a small, distinguished circle of SEWE’s featured artists including John Banovich, Greg Beecham, Kathleen Dunphy, Julie Jeppsen, and Ryan Kirby.

“This is truly an honor and a validation of the work I’ve done over the years,” Brown declares. “But more than that, it’s a full-circle moment for me. SEWE was the first show where I exhibited my work, more than 20 years ago. To be chosen now takes me back to that first time I walked into the ballroom, and I feel proud of what I’ve accomplished since then. I’m grateful that SEWE has continued to support me and provide a platform to showcase my work and passion for wildlife.”

Brown is known for evocative charcoal pieces, and his choice of medium reflects his commitment to simplicity and authenticity. He strives to convey profound depth and emotion through textures and thoughtful compositions. In “Veiled,” he depicts an enormous bull moose, which symbolizes the noble qualities of wildlife.

Brown’s journey began with a B.S. degree in visual communications, which led to a career in commercial illustration and graphic design in his hometown of Baltimore. Longing to capture the spirit of nature, Brown seized an opportunity in 2003 to relocate to Southern California, where he has pursued fine art full-time.

Throughout the year, SEWE welcomes art lovers to its Gallery by SEWE in The Shops at Charleston Place downtown. This space is a continuation of the festival’s popular fine art venue, and is also home to a program of artist residencies.

On View at the Morgan Library & Museum
New York City
themorgan.org
through October 20, 2024

The Morgan Library & Museum is presenting an exhibition that could only happen there. Titled “Walton Ford: Birds and Beasts of the Studio,” it celebrates this American master’s 2019 gift to the Morgan of 63 studies and sketches, now shown publicly for the first time.

Ford is renowned for monumental watercolors that reflect his fascination with how we imagine wild animals, often subverting the historical conventions of animal painting in unforgettable ways.

Organized by Morgan curator emerita Isabelle Dervaux and current curator Jennifer Tonkovich, the show opens with drawings inspired by Ford’s decades of visits to the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. To this day, Ford explores that institution’s rich archives, field studies, documents, and taxidermy specimens. The drawings confirm that his artistry is rooted in scientific research and an attention to detail.

Particularly compelling are the sections of the show devoted to Ford’s studies and watercolors that imagine encounters between big cats and humans, largely based on true stories. Illustrated here is one in a series about a black panther that escaped Zurich’s zoo and spent weeks alone in the countryside before being caught and eaten by a farmer.

Also on view are books Ford has loaned, from travel diaries to volumes of natural history, folktales, and fables. The exhibition closes with a display of relevant pieces selected by Ford from the Morgan’s holdings, accompanied by wall texts he has written. It includes memorable images of animals created by such masters as Rembrandt, Audubon, and Delacroix.

View more fine art gallery exhibitions here at FineArtConnoisseur.com.

Wildlife Art on View > The Briscoe Western Art Museum in San Antonio is set to open a major loan exhibition titled “Survival of the Fittest: Envisioning Wildlife and Wilderness with the Big Four,” through September 8, 2024.

On view will be more than 50 works created by a quartet of masters who rewrote the book — so to speak — on the painting of wildlife worldwide. They were the German-American artist Carl Rungius (1869–1959), the Germans Richard Friese (1854–1918) and Wilhelm Kuhnert (1865–1926), and Sweden’s Bruno Liljefors (1860–1939).

Part of a remarkable generation, they are especially admired for their unprecedented ability to show creatures in their natural habitat, integrating them into the greater whole rather than isolating them like anatomical specimens.

These works have been borrowed from the only two museums anywhere that own masterpieces by every member of this elite: the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede, Netherlands, and the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming.

Located along the San Antonio River Walk, the Briscoe’s main building was constructed in the 1930s as a public library. After an extensive renovation, the museum opened in 2013. The institution is named in honor of the late Texas Governor Dolph Briscoe, Jr., and his wife, Janey Slaughter Briscoe, who envisioned a museum that would share the story of Western heritage and the extraordinary people behind it. The institution has recently produced the first publication surveying its growing permanent collection.

For more details, please visit briscoemuseum.org.

View more art museum announcements here at FineArtConnoisseur.com.

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The Southeastern Wildlife Exposition (SEWE) is ready to celebrate its 42nd anniversary and fill the streets of downtown Charleston, South Carolina with animal lovers of all stripes. Once again, SEWE will program a fine art gallery and an exhibition of artisans and craftsmen alongside its popular demonstrations of dogs and birds of prey in action, plus lively displays by conservation organizations and the South Carolina Department of Agriculture.

Dates: February 16-18, 2024
Website: sewe.com

All of these activities highlight the urgent need to protect wildlife and preserve our natural resources. The art exhibition features more than 90 painters and sculptors — both established and emerging. The event usually draws at least 50,000 people every year.

This year’s featured artist is Kathleen Dunphy, who is based in Northern California. Illustrated here, her painting “Family Outing” will be visible across town on the festival’s official poster. The original work will be on display at the Gallery by SEWE, then auctioned during the VIP gala and sale on February 15.

“Family Outing” portrays a group of Canada geese on a tranquil lake near Dunphy’s home, where she frequently paints outdoors. For her, these birds symbolize the changing of seasons and the promise of warmer days as they migrate north in their distinctive “V” formation. Dunphy recalls, “As I was setting up my easel one morning, this pair of proud parents floated past with their awkward, downy goslings in tow. I was captivated by the glimmer of light on their feathers and the gentle interactions between the family members as they navigated the lake together. It was just another mom and dad taking the kids on a family outing, a different species in a parallel universe to ours.”

This past August, SEWE opened its Gallery by SEWE in The Shops at Charleston Place downtown; the space is a year-round continuation of the festival’s popular fine art venue, and is also home to a program of artist residencies.

View more fine art auctions and sales here at FineArtConnoisseur.com.

“Wild West: Wildlife Art, Past and Present” is the title of the Steamboat Art Museum’s latest exhibition, which traces how the essence and beauty of the American West’s animals have captivated talented artists for more than a century.

Guest-curated by collector Tim Newton, the exhibition features more than 90 works borrowed from private collections and museums, along with works created by 35 living artists, many for sale. The media involved encompass oil, scratchboard, charcoal, watercolor, and bronze.

The historical masters represented on the exhibition checklist include Herbert Dunton, Bob Kuhn, Lanford Monroe, and Carl Rungius. Among the living artists are Douglas Allen, Bill Alther, Greg Beecham, Jim Bortz, Ray Brown, Tim Cherry, Mark Eberhard, Sandy Graves, Tony Hochstetler, Nancy Howe, T.D. Kelsey, Mark Kelso, Steve Kestrel, Rich Loffler, Bonnie Marris, Walter Matia, Sally Maxwell, Jim Morgan, Peregrine O’Gormley, Tom Quinn, Paul Rhymer, Amy Ringholz, Lindsay Scott, Sandy Scott, Tim Shinabarger, Kyle Simms, Dan Smith, Tucker Smith, Jill Soukup, Pati Stajcar, Josh Tobey, Ezra Tucker, Dustin Van Wechel, and Curtis Zabel.

At a Glance:
Steamboat Art Museum
“Wild West: Wildlife Art, Past and Present”
Steamboat Springs, Colorado
steamboatartmuseum.org
Through April 13, 2023

View more art museum announcements here at FineArtConnoisseur.com.

Animals in Art > For the first time in the history of Rijksmuseum, the Netherland’s national museum of art and history, the museum’s Philips exhibition wing has been invaded by creatures great and small in two landmark exhibitions.

“Crawly Creatures” (through January 15, 2023) sheds light on the changing perception in the arts and sciences of the most feared and captivating family of animals through the 16th and 17th centuries. With more than 1000 creatures depicted in 140 works of art, highlights of the exhibition include the first drawing with an insect as the main subject by Albrecht Dürer, Medusa as painted by Rubens, and the finest sottobosco paintings of forest-floor still life by the inventor of the genre Otto Marseus van Schrieck, who bred his own reptiles, amphibians, and insects.

“Clara the Rhinoceros” through January 14, 2023 charts the 18th century’s phenomenon of an animal who traveled far from her native land of India and became the most famous rhinoceros in the world. Through 60 paintings, drawings, medals, statues, books, clocks, and goblets, the exhibition explores how in Europe new knowledge changed perceptions of an unknown Asian animal. Most of the artifacts in the exhibition have been brought together for the first time. Highlights include a life-size, full-length portrait of Clara by Jean-Baptiste Oudry dating from 1749 and a painting by Pietro Longhi from 1751 showing Clara standing in front of her audience in Venice.

Taco Dibbits, General Director of the Rijksmuseum said: “Wonder is the central theme of both exhibitions. A shared fascination of the 17th or 18th-century artist and scientist, but also of the current exhibition visitor. Marvel at the gossamer wing of a dragonfly and the thick folds in the skin of a rhinoceros. At the same time, the exhibitions are also about how Western humans have interacted with other animals in the past. That is a very topical and relevant theme.”

For more information: www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl

ART & THE ANIMAL EXHIBITION / Society of Animal Artists
Turtle Bay Exploration Park
Redding, California
societyofanimalartists.com
turtlebay.org
Through January 1, 2023

Recent works by 125 members of the Society of Animal Artists (SAA) are on view in the organization’s 62nd annual Art & the Animal exhibition. Visitors to California’s Turtle Bay Exploration Park will encounter art depicting a variety of species, made in a wide range of styles, sizes, and techniques.

On October 30, half of the show’s art-works were deinstalled so that they can be shown at the Hiram Blauvelt Art Museum (Oradell, New Jersey, November 19, 2022–January 15, 2023) and finally at the Ella Carothers Dunnegan Gallery of Art (Bolivar, Missouri, February 11–April 2, 2023).

Founded in 1960, SAA is devoted to promoting excellence in the portrayal of creatures sharing our planet, and to public education through exhibitions, lectures, and demonstrations. Its membership represents a veritable who’s who of animal artists worldwide.

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Finding Peace in Connecting to the Wild:
Tyrel Johnson Fine Art wildlife sculptures explore human-to-animal experience

by Amy Stark

Whether wild lynx, bison, frog or fish, the bronze-and-wood wildlife sculptures of Montana artist Tyrel Johnson bring a sense of peace to their audience while offering a unique story of nature. As someone whose connection with animals goes back to childhood – as a defender even of insects – Johnson finds wild creatures a worthy subject for his artwork in part because they’re free of some of the preconceived ideas people have viewing a human form.

“I always wanted to create art that pulls the viewer in more deeply than just the aesthetic or subject,” he says. “We don’t tend to have deep-set bias or judgement toward animals outside of innate admiration.”

Johnson has won praise and commissions for pieces that portray human interaction with animals as with “The Huntress,” depicting the respect between archer and stag, originally a commission for “a massive home.” He considers the sculpture “a great triumph. I thought, ‘how do I draw a guest all the way from one side of the great room to the other with a sculpture?’” he recalls. “The human experience is a unique adventure. When we see people, we categorize them immediately based on experience. The use of animals removes the bias in such a way that they can see themselves as the person in the settings that I sculpt,” allowing them to experience the emotion summoned by a piece in a way they couldn’t if the subjects were both people.

Johnson’s first portrait, “A Princess and Her Prince,” is of his oldest daughter kissing a toad. At the time she was just five years old and anytime she ran past her father, he would call out her name and she would stop and pucker her lips before continuing. Capturing the sweet moment took a year of work, he says, though these days he can complete a portrait in a month.

Gaining that proficiency with anatomy was no small feat. For years he spent nights teaching himself through trial and error, studying skeletal and muscle structure with meticulous attention to accuracy after long days of carpentry work. He considers his early piece “A Bird in the Hand,” of a blindfolded woman holding an owl, a sort of self-portrait, born of the frustration of not being able to easily craft what he envisioned.

“I soon realized that the only way to elevate my artwork was to constantly create work regardless of whether I would cast the pieces or destroy them to start the next piece,” he says. “The blindfold represents my early ignorance of the solution lying quite literally in my hands. The owl represents the knowledge that I can create beauty and continuing to do so is both means and end.”

The quietly positive emotions evoked by Johnson’s work – expressing gratitude, respect, perseverance – have made him a favorite with interior designers, earning a place in two recent coffee table books, from Jackson Hole interior design firm WRJ Design and from JLF Architects of Bozeman, Montana.

In the just-published Foundations: Houses by JLF Architects from Rizzoli New York, Johnson’s “Gratitude,” a “wildly peaceful” sculpture of a bison bowing in acceptance of thanks from a Native American woman, crafted in bronze and maple burl, holds a place of honor in the entry to a Jackson Hole legacy home.

Perseverance is a constant in Johnson’s life and work, as is a dedication to creating artwork of the finest quality. As he says of his style and process, “I do a great deal of math after a concept pops into my head. I often ask myself things like ‘how would a museum display this’ or ‘what makes this a Faberge-quality piece of craftsmanship?’ The triumph of doing art is simply within the act of not giving up. I will always push the limits of my skill. The ease with which I do a face now is the result of hundreds of attempts.”

His latest sculpture, inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s famed The Old Man and the Sea, has had Johnson himself in uncharted waters, working for the first time with glass and leather, both of which he is incorporating in a final work to be revealed this July at the 19th Biennial Hemingway Society Conference to be held in Sheridan, Wyoming.

While this project has proven a challenge worthy of the novella’s protagonist, Johnson perseveres with confidence, saying, “I will pull it off, but there will be plenty of failures and late nights in the coming weeks.”

About Tyrel Johnson Fine Art
The youngest of 16 children, who grew up watching his father and siblings sculpting and working on castings at his father’s foundry, Tyrel Johnson’s destiny as a maker now plays out in bronze, stone and wood from his studio in Billings, Montana, where his passion for woodworking and sculpting – along with meticulous attention to anatomical accuracy – inspires his creative expression. Whether he’s sculpting a life-size lynx or a miniscule kingfisher, a sense of story informs his precise and poetic designs. Johnson, whose work has won Best of Show at the 2022 OutWest Art Show & Sale and both Best of Show and People’s Choice awards at the 2021 Sculpture in the Hills, has been featured in media including Cowboys & Indians, Mountain Living, Big Sky Journal and the coffee table books Natural Elegance: Luxurious Mountain Living and Foundations: Houses by JLF Architects. For more information, visit tyreljohnsonfineart.com or follow @tyreljohnsonart on Instagram.

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BY MAX GILLIES

As fellow residents of Earth, animals have always fascinated humans, especially the artists among us. Thus many creatures appear in prehistoric cave paintings, and today the desire to depict them endures, actually stronger than ever. The artworks illustrated here confirm this ongoing enthusiasm. Enjoy this truly national array of offerings — all encouraging evidence that this longstanding genre is alive and well.

Paintings of Wildlife, Pets, and Farm Animals

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