Philip Rickman BLACK STORK (original watercolour painting)

1967. Painting. Illus. by Philip Rickman. Fine. Framed. Signed by THE ARTIST. Original. A large watercolour and gouache painting of a Black Stork, signed and dated "Philip Rickman 1967" bottom left, on blue-grey lightly flecked paper. Rickman at his best, brilliantly capturing the iridescence of the bird's plumage and early-morning atmosphere of the lakeside. A simple composition with the bird's back and head creating a strong diagonal, set against the blue-grey paper, unsullied by a horizon. The majority of the paper remains unpainted. Framed and glazed, without a mount, the painting 565 x 400 mm; the contemporary frame of cream and gilt 610 x 450 mm. The painting in very good condition, no obvious fading or other defects, though frame is a little chipped and worn. In private correspondence with me, Richard Robjent quoted the instructions given him by Rickman to create the bright sheen of a bird's feathers; he wrote: "My connection with Philip Rickman is well known...he helped me in many ways when I first started to paint birds as a profession. I have always admired his approach and skill in depicting birds and their habitat, particularly in relation to colour. He knew Thorburn well and in a letter to me Philip wrote about his painting method for achieving the bright sheen of a bird's feathers ,which no other artist apart from Thorburn has mastered to such a degree: 'Having settled the angle of light, foreshortening etc. Proceed as follows: Paint in the dark parts, then with cerulean mixed with Chinese white soften edges of black. Then soften edges of cerulean and with a Mallard you can mix emerald and viridian and when previous coat's quite dry, with your brush just wet enough, let colour flow, glaze over the white and cerulean to edge of black.' I spent many hours talking to Philip about painting and about other bird artists he knew such as Thorburn and his good friend and teacher George Lodge.I am a great admirer of PR's approach to painting birds and in depicting their natural habitat. In my opinion he was an outstanding artist. He was very fond of painting waterfowl. He painted more than 100 pictures for the Stevens' brothers of Walcot Hall of their waterfowl collection and more than 150 of most waterfowl species of the world which [were] on view to the public at Bentley Wildfowl Park Sussex [closed 2018]." [For a more detailed biography of Rickman please visit the Artists' Biography section of our website] Provenance: Ex. collection of Christopher Marler, who in the 1960s founded the non-for-profit business Flamingo Gardens and Zoological Park in Buckinghamshire, which boasted an extensive collection of birds, was very much a wildfowl man, heavily involved with the Wildfowl Trust, International Wild Waterfowl Association, The British Waterfowl Association, and sometime president of The Avicultural Society. Christopher Marler bred the most bald eagles in captivity, he was the first to breed several birds in the UK including the painted stork and the red-winged starling. Clearly capable and well-connected, and it would appear that he was personally friendly with Rickman, certainly a number of Rickman paintings are dedicated to him..