ARTIST: Donald Ayres (British, born 1936)
NAME: Fox Hunt
MEDIUM: oil on canvas
CONDITION: Very good. Restretched. Minor wear along edges. No visible inpaint under UV light.
SIGHT SIZE: 24 x 36 inches / 60 x 91 cm
FRAME SIZE: unframed
SIGNATURE: lower right
PROVENANCE: Arnot Gallery NY (has gallery stamp on verso)
CATEGORY: antique vintage painting
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SKU#: 118026
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BIOGRAPHY:
Donald Ayres' work has been used on the front covers of magazines The Field, Shooting Times and Horse and Hound as well as being reproduced as Fine Art Prints. His main focus is British landscapes but he also paints country pursuits, (hunting, shooting and fishing), marine and sea subjects. Represented in the USA by Arnot Gallery.I was born in Bexhill-on-Sea in 1936 and spent my formative years during and after the war wandering the Sussex countryside and Downs, developing a love for both the sea and the landscape. I left school to become an apprentice Diamond Setter working with one of the jewelers who had reset the crown jewels for the 1936 coronation and although I enjoyed the creativity of working with jewelry I could not bear being indoors all day. Out of desperation to see the world I joined the Royal Navy, travelling extensively for eight years.In my late twenty's, after a few years in advertising, I suffered a fairly long illness. Short of money, my wife placed a few of my sketches in a local shop where, to our surprise, they sold instantly and a succession of people came knocking at the door. As I recovered, I spent more and more time sketching and painting and as my confidence grew I decided to move to Cornwall to set up as an artist full time.Dissatisfied with the way art was being taught in the 1960s I looked instead to the techniques of the Old Masters from which to draw inspiration.With a great spiritual love of the countryside I have spent my entire artistic life travelling, painting and sketching the length and breadth of our wonderful country. Moving house as our family needs changed, we lived in Sussex (where I was born) Hampshire, Kent, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall, Wales and Scotland (where I ran my own gallery). During this time I have exhibited across Britain, including Harrods in London, as well as in Europe and America. Approached by the Dyfed College of Art, for a few years I even taught wildlife painting on what was then the only course of its kind in the country.