This site has two main purposes. First and foremost, it is to showcase the works of self-taught artist Nancy Howe of East Dorset, Vermont and to compare her works with those Master artists such as Johannes Vermeer, John Singer Sargent, George Innes, Winslow Homer, Pablo Picasso and James Whistler, that Howe has made it her passion to study and, to a great degree, as will be seen, emulate in a search for her own signature style.
The second purpose is to demonstrate, through the works of Nancy Howe, a little appreciated or respected genre of art here in New England called Wildlife or Nature Art. Wildlife art can include several other genres such as landscape and sporting art so long as the image includes that of a wild animal or bird. And, over the past thirty or more years, the "style" of wildlife art has steadily progressed from the detailed, sometimes "unforgiving" medium of acrylics, such as Howe's own portrayal of mourning doves sitting among cedar (see image to the left) to the softer, more "forgiving" medium of oils such as her image of egrets taking flight before a volcano in the background (see below) that is so often associated with that of contemporary "fine art " paintings.
For a good source of more "in depth" articles about wildlife art as well as some excellent examples by the many artists that practice this genre, please see your local magazine stand for
Wildlife Art Magazine or click on the link to visit their website. Another excellent website worth a visit is the
Worldwide Nature Artists Group.
Mourning Doves, acrylic, 18.5" x 22", 1991
The Power and the Glory, oil, 30" x 24"
"The main thing I'm after is to capture and keep alive the initial, original passion that moved me to do a painting in the first place, to preserve that intangible quality of first-impression feeling that can so easily get lost in too much attention to detail."
Nancy Howe
From "Into the Light" by Michael McIntosh, Wildlife Art News Magazine, July/August 1995
