Carl Brenders

As a contemporary artist working in the photorealistic style, Carl Brenders creates his mixed media paintings with a combination of watercolor and gouache. He chooses his subjects from thousands of photographs he has taken in the wild and then makes numerous pencil sketches to prepare for his finished piece. He draws his final composition in minute detail and then paints the background and animals. He renders the habitat and environment in each work as accurately as the animal itself.

Brenders studied at the Fine Arts Academy in Antwerp and worked as a commercial artist during the 1960s and '70s, creating illustrations for a series of books called The Secret Life of Animals. After making a trip to the United States and visiting the Yellowstone area, he exhibited at Trailside Galleries in Jackson, Wyoming, in 1983 and began his successful career as a wildlife artist. Brender's work is regularly included in the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum's "Birds in Art" exhibition among others, and he has become popular with collectors in the United States, Belgium, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Holland, Argentina, and Japan.

"Since no other subject offers so many different textures and color combinations as nature does, and since nature has always been a lifelong passion, it was inevitable that wildlife painting would become my final destination."

(Quote from: Clinger, Linda D'Agostino. "Wildlife Art's Master Feature: Carl Brenders," Wildlife Art 20, no. 6 (November-December 2001), 27.)