Robert Mclellan Bateman

Heffel Auction House Biography and Notes

This gentle autumnal work features not only Robert Bateman’s well-known and sensitive observations of the natural world, but also an interesting and deft use of the acrylic medium. The stippled background and subtle application of the paint creates a softness and delicacy in the surface, reminiscent of pastel. This adds wonderfully to the sense of fragility in the leaves and branches, as well as to the delicacy of the mouse itself. Its poised alertness and precarious search for food as winter approaches suggests an undercurrent of anxiety that is best explained by the artist himself. In the Artist’s Statement from the 2014 publication New Work, in which this painting is reproduced, he says: “Nature is beautiful, and artists who paint and photograph nature celebrate its gorgeous wonders. Nature, however, has its dark side: suffering and dying are part of reality for all living things.” This duality speaks very clearly to the understated complexity in Bateman’s work that has made him one of the most beloved naturalists of the 20th century.