Biographical Information

Robert K. Abbett
1926 American

The most famous contemporary painter of American sporting dogs, Robert Abbett continues the tradition of his predecessors Percival Rosseau and Gustav Muss-Arnolt.

Abbett was born in Hammond, Indiana and educated at Purdue University and the University of Missouri. This native Midwesterner went to work as an illustrator in 1950 in Chicago. During the next twenty years he established himself as a successful commercial artist. Moving from Chicago to New York, he resigned from commercial agency work and became a free-lance illustrator for magazines and book publishers. Abbett taught techniques of i illustration at the Silvermine Guild in Norwalk, Connecticut from 1959-1962.

His painting career began in 1971, when he and his family moved to a farm in Connecticut. Enamored with the natural surroundings of his new home, he immediately found many sources for paintings.

Abbett's specialization in sporting dog portraiture began at this time. The wife of one of Abbett's hunting companions commissioned a portrait of her husband's English setter as a Christmas gift. The result was a painting arresting in its realism and a new found direction for the painter.