Maurice Wilson (painter)

Maurice Charles John Wilson (born March 15, 1914 in London , † November 1, 1987 in Royal Tunbridge Wells ) was a British animal and marine illustrator and occasional portrait artist .

Life

Wilson was the son of Charles Wilson. He studied from 1928 to 1932 under Philip William Cole at the Hastings School of Art and later at the Royal College of Art under Malcolm Osborne and Robert Austin and at the Royal Academy Schools under Walter Westley Russell . From the mid to late 1940s he was a lecturer in anatomical and botanical drawing at the Bromley School of Art and the Royal School of Needlework . Wilson worked with members of the Natural History Museum in London to reconstruct the appearance of dinosaurs from fossils . In 1960 and 1961 the Royal Academy of Arts exhibited his pictures A heron with a fish and A perching buzzard . In 1964 he was a founding member of the Society of Wildlife Artists , where he was elected Vice President. He was also a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colors (RIPW). Both societies showed exhibitions of his works. In 1967 he illustrated a new edition of Felix Salten's Bambi: A Life in the Woods . In 1970 he designed two cover covers for British Birds magazine . In 1979 he worked as a graphic designer on the television series Life on Earth by David Attenborough involved. In the 1980s he illustrated reprints of several Rudyard Kipling books, including The Jungle Book (1983), The Second Jungle Book (1984) and All the Mowgli Stories (1984).

Wilson used living models for his animal studies. He had a thorough knowledge of anatomy and was an avid nature watcher. His preferred medium was watercolors , but he also worked with pencil and oil paint . In addition to illustrations of wild animals, Wilson also created pictures of dogs and ships, portraits of Neanderthals , Eskimos , Plains Indians , and impressions of the sea and coast. He was also an illustrator for RadioTimes magazine .

Wilson was married and had a son.

Illustrated works (selection)

• Maurice Wilson: Just Monkeys , 1937
• Maurice Wilson: Dogs , 1946 ( Puffin Picture Books PP56)
• Maurice Wilson: Coastal Craft , 1947
• Edward G. Boulenger : Zoo Animals , 1948 (PP73)
• David Seth Smith: Zoo Birds , 1951 (PP68)
• James MM Fisher : Birds and Beasts , 1956
• Richard Carrington: A Guide to Earth History , 1958
• Maurice Wilson: Animals we know , 1959
• James Reeves: Fables of Aesop , 1961
• Laurence Van der Post: The Heart of the Hunter , 1961
• Margery Fisher: A World of Animals , 1962
• Doreen Tovey: Donkey Work , 1962
• James Vance Marshall: A River ran out of Eden , 1962
• Maurice Wilson: Animals , 1964
• Henry Gwynne Vevers: Animals of the Artic , 1964
• Maurice Wilson: Birds , 1965
• Felix Salten: Bambi: A Life in the Woods , 1967
• John Russell Napier : The Origins of Man , 1968
• Barry Cox : Prehistoric Animals , 1976
• Helen Griffiths: Patch , 1970
• John Cunliffe: Our Sam , 1980
• David Day : The Doomsday Book of Animals , 1981
• Peter J. Andrews, Chris B. Stringer: Human Evoluation: An Illustrated Guide , 1989 (posthumous)

literature

• Brigid Peppin, Lucy Micklethwait: Dictionary of British Book illustrators: The Twentieth Century John Murray, London 1983, ISBN 0-7195-3985-4 , p. 328
• Anne Commire: Something about the Author Vol. 46, 1987, ISBN 978-0-81032-256-1 , pp. 223-224
• Christine E. Jackson : Dictionary of Bird Artists of the World , Antique Collectors Club Ltd., 1999, ISBN 978-1-85149-203-9 , p. 494
• Alan Charig: Forword In: Peter J. Andrews, Chris B. Stringer: Human Evoluation: An Illustrated Guide Cambridge University Press, 1989, ISBN 978-0-52138-824-5 (with a short biography of Maurice Charles John Wilson on page 7 )

Web links

• Works at ArtNet
• Literature by and about Maurice Wilson (painter) in the bibliographic database WorldCat