An elephant with a deeply creased grey hide, flapping ears the size of blankets, and menacing tusks loomed before me. The dry heat and dust of Africa rose around us. I was nervous and felt vulnerable, even though I was only standing in front of a painting. But this painting was more than realistic, it also captured the spirit of the beast, conveyed its intelligence, and made me feel a part of the dramatic setting. It demonstrated, very powerfully, why Robert Bateman is one of Canada’s most acclaimed artists.
Robert, now a respected senior, was born in Toronto 85 years ago. He fell in love with and dedicated himself to nature from an early age. In his spare time, he explored the ravines near his home and joined the junior field naturalists of the Royal Ontario Museum. Over the years, he developed an impressive knowledge of the biology of animals and, especially, birds. He also discovered his prodigious talent for drawing and, in his early teens, was already producing excellent sketches of the nature and wildlife he encountered.
While studying geography at the University of Toronto, Robert’s summer jobs in Algonquin Park immersed him in the wilderness of Ontario. On graduating, he taught high-school geography and art in the Burlington area, while feeding his passion for nature and painting scenes in the Halton region. He particularly enjoyed depicting rural scenes that focused on nature but included some human touch such as an old barn or gate.
Robert has always had enormous curiosity, as well as a love of travel. In 1957, at age 27, he and his best friend, Bristol Foster, who also became an eminent naturalist, embarked on an epic trip. They went from England through Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and Australia, driving over 60,000 km in 14 months. They had adventures aplenty, once cramming 30 pygmies on board their Land Rover to take them hunting. They also studied and recorded nature with Robert filling notebooks with his sketches, as well as painting scenes of every country they visited on the sides of the Land Rover. They regularly sent articles about their odyssey to The Toronto Evening Telegram, and became known as the Rover Boys.
Recalling those days, Robert says an important philosophy emerged: “We need to get closer to nature,” he says. “Today, especially, kids should stop watching a screen and get outside.”
Robert continued to teach in the Burlington area, and in the early 1960s helped initiate the Bruce Trail, an 800-km hiking path along the Niagara Escarpment from Niagara to Tobermory.
“The trail was conceived on a couch at a meeting of the Hamilton Naturalists Club in 1960,” he says. To get public and landowners support, a seven-day, 185-kilometre hike from Mount Nemo to Craigleith was organised. Daily reports on the progress of the hiking team with Robert appeared in The Telegram.
Drawn back to Africa, Robert taught in Nigeria from 1963-65, where he studied and painted wildlife. Because of the heat, he developed the lifetime habit of napping about 45-50 minutes in the early afternoon. The African influence has stayed with him to this day.
Although Robert always enjoyed art, and had an impressive talent, he had not intended to earn a living from it. The popularity of his paintings, however, which capture animals, birds, and their natural landscape in a unique, realistic and evocative style, began to capture the public’s attention.
He received a wake-up call in 1975 when the Tryon Gallery in London, England, held a Bateman show. Every single painting sold with prices as high as $10,000. Realizing his art could support him, the next year Robert quit teaching and took up painting as his career. It turned out to be a wise decision, and he went on to enjoy fame that most artists only dream of.
Another financial success came in 1981 when his coffee-table book, The Art of Robert Bateman, was a national hit and so successful that some individuals, quite unethically, sliced plates out of the book and sold them.
British Columbia always lured Robert Bateman. In his early 20s, he and a friend took a Greyhound from Toronto to Victoria and scaled mountains on southern Vancouver Island.
“One day I sat on top of Mount Cokely and did six paintings,” he recalls. “They were pretty well all a testament to the mountains we were enjoying.” Since then, Bateman has hiked and painted numerous alpine peaks around the world, but his love of British Columbia never abated.
In 1985, he succumbed to the lure of the province and moved to Salt Spring Island where he and Birgit Freybe Bateman, his second wife and a talented photographer, have a comfortable home at the end of a long winding gravel road on a secluded lake in the forest. He was pulled by BC’s beauty but also pushed to leave Ontario. He says, “I love the bird life here and the closeness to nature, and suburbia was closing in on us in southern Ontario.” Robert has five children, two with Birgit and three with his first wife. They are adults now, but Bateman remains close to them and values family ties.
The popularity and demand for Bateman’s art continued to soar through the 1990s and his shows attracted crowds. Today, Robert Bateman is famous, beloved, and his paintings are internationally renowned. Robert not only loves and cares about nature, but is also a crusader for the environment, and is generous in supporting many conservationist causes. Numerous accolades have been bestowed upon him including the Order of Canada and 12 honorary doctorates, but particularly heart-felt was recognition by the Audubon Society as a 20th-century “hero of conservation.”
I visited Robert at his island home, and he showed me around his rambling house designed in Japanese and arts & crafts styles. He was proud of a small waterfall and pond he had made. A bear totem welcomed us at the front door. Treasures from the Batemans’ treks around the globe were scattered here and there. In the large studio, light flowed in from large north-facing windows and several paintings were in progress. A bramble-filled clearing led to a lake where he often canoes. Birds flitted and chirped at feeders. Immersed in this gentle nature, Robert looks comfortable and much younger than his age.
Full of energy and charm, Robert maintains long hours, something he has done all his life. “My paintings are easy to start, but because I find them hard to finish, it helps to work on five to 10 paintings at a time,” he says.
There’s one aspect of Robert that deserves attention: his extraordinary mental and physical health. At 85, he’s active, buzzing with ideas, tackling projects, travelling and painting. He teaches, rides a bicycle, and paddles a canoe. His staff have trouble keeping up! He shares some of the secrets to his longevity.
He aims for eight hours of sleep each night, going to sleep about 11:15 p.m., and with the alarm ringing at 6:45 a.m. “I snooze through the CBC news,” he says. He minimizes sugar in his diet. “Fructose is the enemy,” he says, “not fat. The key is in the shopping,” he states. “Do not buy unhealthy food in the first place. Stick to the periphery of grocery stores. Avoid the centre.”
“I drink alcohol,” he confesses, “but only in moderation. I’m known as ‘One-Beer Bateman.’” However, he has a gin with lemon juice every night before bed. Exercise is important and Robert tries to take a 40-minute walk each day, although his schedule, especially travel, doesn’t always allow this. “The hike is along one of my favourite paths in the world,” he says, “a grassy old farm road that cuts through the forest. There is a stream that trickles through the woods and pools near the path, and it’s full of little fish.”
Robert believes mental well-being relates directly to physical health, and that attitude is critical. “Don’t worry about problems,” he says. “Simply deal with them as best you can, but don’t waste time worrying about them. Keep a positive attitude.”
His solid, happy marriage with Birgit also contributes to his long, healthy life. She keeps up to date with nutritional articles and ensures he takes his daily supplements and also does his exercises with a personal trainer once a week.
Robert continues to travel around the globe and in his home province. In 2014, he led a cruise to the Great Bear Rainforest, which he says is “one of the earth’s most stunning wildlife areas. It hosts healthy wild salmon populations, invaluable medicinal plants, and unique rare species such as the Spirit Bear, the rainforest’s namesake.” He has explored BC’s interior on several trips including one with packhorses.
In 2013, the Robert Bateman Centre opened in the heritage Steamship Building on Victoria’s picturesque inner harbour, and displays seven decades of Bateman’s paintings, sketches and sculptures. Special exhibits are held, often reflecting environmental topics. Amazingly, the Land Rover that carried him on his 1957 odyssey was recently found and, fully refurbished, it formed the centrepiece of the Rover Boys exhibition in 2015.
“A primary purpose of the Centre is for education with the goal of attracting young people to nature,” he says. The Centre is planning several educational programs and is working in conjunction with a nearby First Nation.
We entered a gallery that features paintings of birds, and something special: by pressing a button the song of that bird could be heard. The room was filled with chirping and trilling. “My favourites,” he says, “are raptors, especially the bald eagle.” This mighty bird, an iconic BC native, is found all along the coast. And nowhere are they represented more nobly and elegantly than on Robert’s canvases. He feels people who study birds — he is a life-long birder — are observant by nature and acutely aware of the degradation of the ecosystem. “Birds,” he says, “are literally and figuratively the canary in the mine.” And the mine is struggling.
We stood next to a two-panel painting, Carmanah Contrasts. The top part showed a vibrant, rich rain forest typical of BC’s west coast. The bottom section showed the grim bleakness of the forest after it had been clear-cut. Nearby was a painting of a dolphin entangled in a fishing net. “These illustrate what BC could lose if we don’t make big changes to our relationship with the natural world,” he says. “We are going to have to get by with simpler lives and less in the future, and what better way than walking up a mountain and going for a walk in the woods?”
“We can change our ways or continue towards a catastrophic future,” continues Robert. “This is why the younger generation is so important. The attachment to nature must be reconnected in the hearts and minds of a critical mass of the future leaders of the planet.”
Robert has recently compiled his biography, Life Sketches – A Memoir. Published by Simon & Schuster in 2015, it examines his life, art and inner thoughts, and is also magnificently illustrated with numerous sketches and many colour plates.
Robert says he is frequently asked to give lectures. Just like a preacher, he’s spreading the gospel of nature, urging young people to get out into the church of the grand blue dome. Not only does he possess prodigious talent that has created masterpieces of art, but he is also providing spiritual leadership – much needed in today’s world.
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