Robert Verity Clem (1933 – 2017)

The first reproductions I saw of Clem’s, published in an ornithological journal, astounded me by virtue of their near-photographic realism. I say “near” because this was definitely not “photo-realism”, which does not appeal to me, but rather a solid command of the principles of realism, and the artful use of light and shadow, and of composition. In my view then and now, if the great American painter, Andrew Wyeth, were a bird painter with Clem’s knowledge of bird structure, anatomy and behavior, the results would be something like what Clem produces.  It is not that I want to paint just like he did, but that how he painted, his consummate skill as shown in reproductions, was and remains a source of inspiration. As with George Lodge I thought he sometimes didn’t get proportions of the head exactly right, but on the other hand his backgrounds and settings were original, thoughtfully planned, and extremely well done.  His painting of an American Woodcock, shown amid the detritus of the forest floor all in dappled sunlight and shadow, competes, in my mind with D. M. Reid Henry’s Gyrfalcons as one of the finest bird painting masterpieces ever. While he could make a mistake (he got a plover’s foot color – key to identification – wrong in one painting) he was, at his best, brilliant, and inspiring to me.