Before very long Bob was selling paintings in galleries from New York to Dallas, exhibiting in group shows and putting his talent to use in many conservation art programs. His realistic art has always been nature based, and it expressively depicts the outdoor life and activities that so many of us long for. His work with sporting dogs has become near legendary, as remarked by Michael McIntosh writing in Wildlife Art News, "In fact, Robert Abbett may well be the finest painter of dogs who has ever lived."
There is always life in an Abbett painting, his animals and birds live and breathe and seem right in their environments, as they should. "I’m not satisfied doing a dog on a plain background," Bob explains, "I think they should be shown in at least a smattering of the setting for which they’ve been bred. I’m also not interested in only doing standard breed types, I’d rather work to catch the look of each particular animal. Dogs, cats and horses, after all, are individuals too, and I believe it is important that these specific ‘looks’ be defined and presented wherever possible."
"I’ve tried not to limit myself to too narrow a circle of subject matters - I want to be free to paint whatever theme may spark a new idea - like the kids raking leaves by that old upstate home, a picture which began a whole series of ‘old house’ paintings." Whenever I find I am putting other projects aside to work on a particular painting, that’s called inspiration!", Bob explains.
Robert Abbett’s list of conservation print/stamp programs include Trout Unlimited, The Ruffed Grouse Society, The National Quail Federation and The Cutting Horse Association, to name but a few. He has repeatedly exhibited at the Artists of America exhibit in Denver, the National Academy of Western Art (the Cowboy Hall of Fame) in Oklahoma City and group shows with the Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he and Marilyn spend the winter months in a second studio home.
Bob was for many years active in the Society of Illustrators in New York
City, is now a member of the Society of Animal Artists, is listed in Who’s
Who in the East, Who’s Who in American Art, and is a past president
of The Westport Artists. His teaching includes classes at the Silvermine
College in Connecticut and workshops at the Scottsdale Artists School
in Arizona. His paintings are in the permanent collections of the Cowboy
Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, the Genesco Country Museum, Mumford, New
York, and the National Pointing Dog Museum in Tennessee as well as the
Dog Museum in St. Louis.
As a staff writer for Wildlife Art, his "From Behind the Easel"
column is in its fifteenth year. He also began the "Favorite Covers"
feature in both the Pointing Dog Journal and the Retriever Journal.
"If I had to sum up my goal in painting, it would be to invite you
to step past the picture frame and wander in through the scene with me.
My effort is to paint places, experiences, textures and colors we could
both hopefully remember and share. You know, artists often kid around
that if too many people find out what pleasure we get painting pictures,
we might be sentenced to the big tractor studio in the sky where we’ll
spend all our time painting nuts and bolts! But when I can paint some
kids raking leaves and have them look alive, or put that little highlight
in a dog’s eye and see him start to breathe, then it all seems worth
the risk to me."
"I have more than once walked with my gun into thinning autumn
woods behind my setters, and devouring the beauty around me have thought:
That’s just how Robert Abbett would paint it."
George Bird Evans
