Emil Morhardt

Great White Hunter, Original Painting

2021

Artist Comments
"Who knew that Snowy Egrets at the beach hunted beetles?" says artist Emil Morhardt. "This one was stealthily sneaking up on something, then grabbing it and starting over, but it was sure hard to see what at the time.” Finally, under intense magnification, Emil's photography revealed beetles. "I painted the insect in the picture a little larger than what the Egret was hunting, so at least there would be some evidence for the extreme posture."

About the Artist
Emil Morhardt is an acrylic painter from Santa Barbara, California who expresses his passion for birds through realistic acrylic paintings. He paints at home in a studio room that has large windows and a north-facing view of the mountains. He observes the animals from this window, watching roadrunners, foxes, bobcats, deer, and coyote run by. Surrounded by this wildlife, Emil paints bird portraits reminiscent of those by artist John James Audubon. He bases his paintings off hundreds of photographs he takes of birds in the wild and at wildlife recovery centers. Emil captures the freedom and inquisitiveness that birds display in the natural world. Before painting birds, he painted landscapes of San Francisco and the Eastern Sierra. Emil was raised in the high desert of California and learned to paint from his father, who was one of the early California watercolorists. Emil has a BA in Zoology from Pomona College and a PhD in Environmental Physiology and Ecology from Rice University. He also was a Professor of Environmental Biology at Claremont McKenna, Scripps, and Pitzer Colleges.

Words that describe this painting: Egret, Snowy Egret, surf, beach, animal, bird, wildlife, shore, sand, sunlit, sunny, realism, shadow, animals, realism, acrylic painting, grey

Great White Hunter
Emil Morhardt
Acrylic painting on stretched canvas
Painting wraps around edges
Varnished and Ready to hang
One-of-a-kind
Signed on front
2021
24 in. h x 36 in. w x 1.5 in. d
5 lbs. 6 oz.