Jonathan Sainsbury

Jonathan Sainsbury is a long-established British wildlife artist: an artist first and foremost, whose subject happens to be the natural world.

Jonathan has spent a lifetime observing and drawing his subjects. He is master of the fleeting moment, often using the mediums of watercolour, or watercolour combined with charcoal, to convey immediacy, a sense of movement and atmosphere.

In much of his work he draws on nature as a metaphor to say something about life itself. As he says: 'The human desire for knowledge forever drives us to ask questions. Rarely do we simply meditate on the beauty of the natural world into which we are mortally bound. Adam and Eve, in the Biblical story, fell from the Garden of Eden because they ate from the Tree of Knowledge. I prod and probe and paint, hoping to reflect something of its complexity and beauty, looking for a glimpse of Eden.'
Born in Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire, Jonathan Sainsbury grew up with close links to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. He studied for a Pre-Diploma at Leamington Spa College of Art, before working in the Paint Shop of the Theatre and visiting Japan with the Company. He read Fine Art at Leeds College of Art, graduating in 1976 with a show that included an experimental 'man-powered flying suit', featured in Young Northern Contemporaries Exhibition, 1976.

Jonathan returned to Warwickshire and began painting landscapes, often featuring game and wildlife observed from life, encountered through his springer spaniels. William Marler of the William Marler Gallery, Cirencester, recognised the quality of his work and for many years hosted sell-out one-man shows, which attracted critical acclaim from the late Aylmer Tryon, founder of the Tryon Gallery and brought Jonathan to the attention of the Modern British Department at Sotheby's, London. He travelled in the Far East where he studied rare pheasants in their natural habitats.

Jonathan moved to North Devon in the mid-eighties, then to Perthshire, Scotland at the end of the decade. When the William Marler Gallery closed in the early nineties, Jonathan began to stage one-man exhibitions in country houses, starting with Scone Palace, Perthshire, followed by Kissing Tree House and Foxcote in Warwickshire and later, the Long Room at Purdey, Gunmakers, London.

As his work matured, Jonathan successfully submitted it to public exhibitions: those with birds, wildlife or conservation themes and mainstream contemporary art shows.
With wildlife and landscape as his subject-matter, Jonathan was aware that wildlife photography and film-making was posing a challenge to artists. He saw that artists had to use the unique aspects of picture-making such as design, drawing, skill in handling paint, to say what only art could say. This led to his highly-successful Square Series, which won critical acclaim world-wide.

Jonathan was elected a Signature Member of the Society of Animal Artists in the United States and a Signature Member of the Artists' Foundation for Conservation and regularly hangs with those groups as well as in the Society of Wildlife Artists exhibition in London. His work is recognised within Contemporary Scottish art circles where he has exhibited with the Royal Scottish Watercolour Society, the Aberdeen Artists' Society and the Royal Glasgow Institute.

Jonathan exhibits in a number of contemporary galleries in Scotland and England, including Strathearn Gallery, Crieff where he has his first larger feature show in 2016. He has exhibited at the CLA Game Fair for years as a member of the Redspot group and at the Scottish Game Fair. He also participates in Perthshire Open Studios. Jonathan's work is displayed in national publications like Country Life and The Field as well as in sporting magazines. His work hangs in public and private collections world-wide.