E R I C E N N I O N ( 1 9 0 0 - 1 9 8 1 )
Eric Ennion is recognized as one of the 20th Century's most talented and original wildlife artists, specialising in the depiction of birds.
Ennion was brought up in Burwell, on the edge of the Cambridgeshire Fens where he developed a passionate interest in birds and other wildlife. Educated at Epsom Collage and Cambridge, he trained as a doctor and joined his father's practice in 1926. Being a doctor secured an income to support himself and his family whilst allowing the freedom to study, paint birds and indulge his passion for natural history. He held his first one-man show at the Greatorex Galleries in 1937. After the war, Ennion gave up medicine and became the first warden of the pioneer Field Study Centre at Flatford Mill in Sussex. During the 1950s he ran a Bird Observatory and Field Centre at Monks House in Northumberland. His later life was spent in Wiltshire. Ennion travelled widely in Britain, and made several trips abroad, to watch and sketch birds. He was the author of eleven books, illustrating all but one himself, and the illustrator of many works by a number of other authors. Ennion was a founding member and Honorary Vice President of the Society of Wildlife Artists. |