Basil Ede

Basil Ede (12 February 1931—29 September 2016) was an English wildlife artist specialising in avian portraiture, noted for the ornithological precision of his paintings.

Early life Basil Ede was born 12 February 1931 in Surrey. Ede's interest in drawing began early in life. As a schoolboy growing up during the Second World War, he filled his exercise books with sketches of military aircraft and caricatures of his school teachers. He was educated at St John's School, Leatherhead. He later attended Kingston School of Art. However, in 1949, he was called up for military service in the British Army.

Initially he trained as a Gunner with The Royal Artillery, but after being selected to attend the Mons Officer Cadet School he was commissioned into the RASC, serving as Second Lieutenant and then Lieutenant .

Career The first one-man exhibition of Basil Ede's work was held at the Rowland Ward Gallery in London in 1958. The publication features a foreword written by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and text by ornithologist W. D. Campbell, republished by Chartwell Books in 2004.

In 1966, 1971 and 1979 one man exhibitions of Ede's work were held at the Kennedy Galleries in New York. In 1971 Ede was commissioned by Walter Annenberg, then serving as United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James, to paint a series of eastern Pennsylvanian birds for his private collection. Described as a "very ambitious project", the commission was to paint every species of wild bird in North America, 650 in all, in life size. Robert McCracken Peck, in his essay "Four Centuries of Avian Portraiture", says that the project "...has been compared in scope to John James Audubon's twenty eight year effort to document and celebrate the birds of North America", but adds, "so limited a comparison fails to put into proper perspective the much larger tradition of bird painting in America with which both Audubon and Ede are intimately interlinked." Today they form part of the Warner Art Collection in the United States. In 1991, the book "Wild birds of America - the Art of Basil Ede" was published by Harry N. Abrams, featuring 103 colour reproductions from the Wild Birds of America series, as well as reproductions from Ede's field notes and sketches. "I lost the use of my right side completely and I couldn't speak." he later told Nigel Reynolds in an interview for The Daily Telegraph in November 1999. Also in 1992, Ede was honoured with a "Lifetime Achievement Award" by the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition in Charleston, South Carolina. In July 1993, the Wimborne Arts Festival (Dorset, UK) chose to honour Ede with a one-man exhibition of his work in oils.

Basil Ede was one of the founder members of the Society of Wildlife Artists and a life member and active supporter of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

Basil Ede died on 29 September 2016, at the age of eighty five, following a short illness, survived by his wife, and two sons.

Books Birds of Town and Village (Country Life Books 1965, Octopus Publishing Group Ltd 2004 - reprinted 2006, 2007, 2009) Basil Ede's Birds (Severn House Publications & Van Nostrand Reinholt Inc. 1980, Hamlyn Paperbacks edition 1982) Wild Birds of America - The Art of Basil Ede (Abrams, New York, 1991)

Exhibitions

One Man Shows

The Rowland Ward Gallery, London, 1958 The Tryon Gallery, London, 1960, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1968, 1975, 1980 The National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington DC, 1964 Kennedy Galleries, New York, 1966, 1971, 1979 The Gibbs Art Museum, Charleston, South Carolina, 1979 The Hibernian Hall, Charleston, South Carolina, 1984 The Palm Springs Desert Museum, California, 1987 The Wimborne Arts Festival, Dorset, United Kingdom, 1993

Major joint exhibitions

The Pieter Wenning Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa, 1966 The Cumner Art Museum, Jacksonville, Florida, 1987 The Tryon Gallery, London, 1988 The Tryon and Morland Gallery, London, 1992 Rountree Tryon Galleries, London, 2017

Permanent exhibitions

The Warner Art Collection, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA The Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland