Tony Angell

Tony Angell was born on November 15, 1940, in Los Angeles, California. He grew up observing and depicting wildlife in the San Fernando Valley area of Southern California. As a child, Angell kept and flew hawks and falcons that he also enjoyed drawing and painting. However, by the time he left Southern California to attend the University of Washington (where he had received an athletic scholarship), his home area had lost much of the wilderness that had engaged him as a child, and he decided never to return there to live.

A sculptor who works in stone, Angell was mentored by Francis Lee Jacques and Don Eckelberry and was influenced by Bruno Liljefors. Though Angell depicts mainly birds in his art, he seeks to make the public aware of the environment and its inhabitants through his work. He maintains studios at his home in Seattle and at an island retreat in Puget Sound. In addition to sculpting, he has written and illustrated several books on wildlife.

"The stone itself, by its shape, its color, the way it looks in different light at different times of day, offers hints of how it can be defined."

(Quote from: Todd Wilkinson, "Coaxing Magic from Stone," Wildlife Art, Nov./Dec. 1995: 40)