About the artist
BORN 1860-1935
PLEASE SEE AVAILABLE ARTWORK BELOW
At jjcountrylifeart we will endeavour to always make available the artwork of Archibald Thorburn
Archibald Thorburn is one of Britain’s best known watercolour artists, particularly for his pictures of birds and mammals placed in harmonious landscapes. Thorburn’s style of painting represented a step change in wildlife art around the turn of the century and the lifelike renderings of his subjects brought him early fame and fortune. Thorburn painted at a time when the obvious advantages that modern artists have were not available, but he still managed to produce some truly beautiful and accurate depictions of his subjects. No artist past or present has been able to improve on Archibald Thorburn’s technique for painting a bird’s plumage.
Thorburn started his career painting both birds and mammals, but soon he made the decision to focus his efforts almost exclusively on depictions of birds in their natural habitat. Not only did he produce a prolific number of original watercolours, he also contributed to scores of natural history books for authors, ornithologists and explorers of the day, finding time to write and illustrate six of his own.
During Archibald Thorburn’s career he produced a large number of prints, the majority in partnership with publisher Baird Carter/Embleton and over 200 of them are catalogued in Waters, D. (2008) “Archibald Thorburn: Artist and Illustrator – The Prints and Proofs 1889 – 1934” soon to be published by Langford Press.
Available Artwork
