As a child, Claiborne Gregory’s mother took him to art museums and as an artist herself, encouraged her son to express himself through paintings. As an adult, Gregory began his life as a banker in Richmond, Virginia and only painted as a leisurely pastime. His friends often bought
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his paintings and after a few years, he began to sell them at the Waterfowl Festival in Easton, MD. In his first year of exhibiting, he qualified to exhibit in the Gold Room, a prestigious honor at the Festival. Gregory met Andy and Sandy Andrews in his first few years of attending the festival. With the support of the Andrews and other collectors, he was encouraged to quit his job as a banker and become a full-time professional artist. It has been over fifteen years and he has never looked back.
Though Gregory has never had any formal training, he has his own library, which serves as reference for many of his works. He admires the brilliant light used by nineteenth-century Luminists, the Impressionists loose style, and the color use by the Hudson River School. The anatomical correctness of the animals has never been a focus point for Gregory. He categorizes himself as a landscape painter who often includes wildlife in his art.
The Canvasback, as depicted in the painting, are a wild duck, found only in North America. The adult male has a black bill, a red head and neck, a black breast, red eyes and a whitish body. The adult female has a brown head and body and a black bill. Their breeding habitat is North American prairie wetlands. Canvasbacks are strongly migratory and over winter on the coasts of the United States, the Great Lakes and British Columbia in saltwater bays, estuaries or lakes. |
