Rex Flood

Art Brokerage: Rex Flood British Artist: b. 1928. Rex Flood was an extraordinary British wildlife painter who was born in Lancashire in 1928 but spent his early formative years in Yorkshire. He attended Prep school in Barnard Castle in the late 1930s and had the choice of taking Science or Art and was the only pupil in his class to sign up for Art classes, this meant that for a time he received individualized tuition. Rex finished his education at Appleby Grammar School and after leaving school he worked for a time in a garage. In 1946 Rex joined the Royal Air Force and trained as an Instrument engineer. He served in the RAF for 22 years, leaving in 1968. In his later years in the RAF he painted a few pictures for his colleagues, mainly Tigers for his fellow members of No. 74 (Tiger) Squadron. On leaving the RAF in 1968 he was not sure what to do, so he decided to try to selling some of his paintings which proved very successful due to the almost photographic detail in his images. His early work was mainly commissioned work of people's pets and also aircraft and African animals. He was a member of the Guild of Aviation Artists and in 1974 was commissioned to paint an aircraft to be presented to King Hussein of Jordan when his visited the UK. Rex was a naturalist who painted the wildlife he observed every day in Aysgarth within the English Yorkshire Dales where he lived. Painting wildlife "as he saw it", Rex painted with extraordinary accuracy and seemed to bring his subjects "off the page" and alive. His many successful exhibitions throughout the UK, the Channel Islands and beyond were a testimony to the detail in each of his paintings which represented the animal or bird he portrayed. He returned to Yorkshire in 1976 and his paintings on display at his home and also in Galleries in North Yorkshire and Cumbria. In the mid-eighties he held two very successful exhibitions in the Channel Islands, in St. Peter Port, Guernsey. In 1974 was the first of three exhibitions at the renowned Weston Gallery in Norfolk, the first contemporary artist to have exhibitions there. His work there was now almost completely birds and animals. Rex was then introduced to the US and exhibited his work in Galleries in San Antonio, Texas, by one of his collectors who had moved there from Lancashire. He visited a few times from 1980 and continued to work with Galleries and also on Commissions both from the US and his many followers in the UK until ill health curtailed his work from about 2007 onwards. Rex Flood's work is held in many private collections throughout the world and enjoyed by his followers every day. Listings wanted.