Tony Angell is an American wildlife artist, environmental educator, and writer. He has lived in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

, since 1959.

Life

Angell was born in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, in 1940. His father was a

private eye ''Private Eye'' is a British fortnightly satirical and current affairs (news format), current affairs news magazine, founded in 1961. It is published in London and has been edited by Ian Hislop since 1986. The publication is widely recognised ...

, and his mother a painter and teacher. Angell grew up in the

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it comprises a large portion of Los Angeles, the Municipal corpo ...

. As a child, he explored the Los Angeles River to hunt and fish, as well as the local beaches to surf and skin dive. This early exposure to nature instilled in him a life-long respect for the outdoors and native animals. He went to Seattle in 1959 on an athletics scholarship and obtained a BA in Speech Communications and a MA degree from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

. Angell taught high school and junior college communication courses before assuming the position of State Supervisor in the Office of Environmental Education for the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction of

Washington state Washington, officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is often referred to as Washington State to distinguish it from the national capital, both named after George Washington ...

. He remained in this position for over thirty years. He was active in the

Nature Conservancy The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, United States. it works via affiliates or branches in 79 countries and territories, as well as across every state in the US. Founded in ...

, with time as chairman and as a member of the board of its Washington chapter. He received the national organization's highest award, the Golden Oak Leaf, for his work in establishing the Skagit River Bald Eagle Natural Area. He was recognized as a Champion of Puget Sound by the Puget Sound Keeper's Alliance in 2014. His outreach with both his writing and artwork resulted in his election into the Hall of Fame of the Department of Communications at the University of Washington.

Artwork

Angell makes sculptures in

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

and stone and has shown them regularly for some forty years. He has worked in

chlorite The chlorite ion, or chlorine dioxide anion, is the halite (oxyanion), halite with the chemical formula of . A chlorite (compound) is a compound that contains this group, with chlorine in the oxidation state of +3. Chlorites are also known as s ...

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock consisting of carbonate minerals (most commonly calcite (CaCO3) or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) that have recrystallized under the influence of heat and pressure. It has a crystalline texture, and is ty ...

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

, serpentine,

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

and

soapstone Soapstone (also known as steatite or soaprock) is a talc-schist, which is a type of metamorphic rock. It is composed largely of the magnesium-rich mineral talc. It is produced by dynamothermal metamorphism and metasomatism, which occur in sub ...

. Among his many public commissions are Seattle's

Woodland Park Zoo Woodland Park Zoo is a wildlife conservation organization and zoological garden located in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. The zoo is the recipient of over 65 awards across multiple categories. The zoo has a ...

, the Seattle Aquarium, the City of Redmond, WA, the

Mount Baker Ski Area Mt. Baker Ski Area is a ski resort in the northwest United States, located in Whatcom County, Washington, at the end of State Route 542. The base elevation is at , while the peak of the resort is at . It is about south of the 49th parallel, t ...

, Sleeping Lady in Leavenworth, WA and the public libraries of

Bainbridge Bainbridge may refer to: People *Bainbridge (name) Places * Bainbridge Township (disambiguation) United States * Bainbridge Island, Alaska * Bainbridge, Georgia * Bainbridge, Indiana * Bainbridge (town), New York ** Bainbridge (village), New Yo ...

and

Lopez Island Lopez Island is the third largest of the San Juan Islands and an unincorporated town in San Juan County, Washington, United States. Lopez Island is in land area. The 2020 census population was 3,156, though the population swells in the summe ...

. His work is part of the

Harborview Medical Center Harborview Medical Center is a public hospital located in the First Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is owned by King County and managed by UW Medicine. Overview Harborview Medical Center is the designated Disast ...

and the public collection of the Seattle Business Center. His sculptural work is included in the collections of the

Museum of Northwest Art The Museum of Northwest Art (also referred to as MoNA) is an art museum located in La Conner, Washington La Conner is a town in Skagit County, Washington, United States with a population of 965 at the 2020 census. It is included in the ...

, the

Seattle Art Museum The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, United States. The museum operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in ...

, the

Frye Art Museum The Frye Art Museum is a modern and contemporary art museum in the First Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1952 to house the collection of Charles and Emma Frye and has since grown to include rotating temporary exhibi ...

, the Tacoma Art Museum, the Gilcrease Museum of Art in

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa ( ) is the List of municipalities in Oklahoma, second-most-populous city in the U.S. state, state of Oklahoma, after Oklahoma City, and the List of United States cities by population, 48th-most-populous city in the United States. The po ...

, and the

National Museum of Wildlife Art The National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA) is a museum located in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, United States that preserves and exhibits wildlife art. The 51,000 square foot building with its Idaho quartzite façade was inspired by the ruins of Slains ...

Jackson Hole, Wyoming Jackson Hole (originally called Jackson's Hole by mountain men) is a valley between the Gros Ventre Range, Gros Ventre and Teton Range, Teton mountain ranges in the U.S. state of Wyoming, near the border with Idaho, in Teton County, Wyoming, T ...

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

has his paintings in their collections, as does the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

in London, England. Awards for his artwork include the Master Artist Medal from the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Gallery of Wausau, Wisconsin, and a first prize award in illustration from the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2006. His sculpture ''Stretching Kestrel'' received the Chilmark Award from the National Sculpture Society, an organization of which he is an elected Fellow. In 2016, the Museum of Northwest Art awarded a Northwest Luminaries award in Angell's name. The award is named in honor of those who have left a lasting impact on the Pacific Northwest region (including

Patti Warashina Patti Warashina (born 1940) is an American artist known for her imaginative ceramic sculptures. Often constructing her sculptures using porcelain, Warashina creates narrative and figurative art. Her works are in the collection of the Museum of Ar ...

and art historian Bill Holm). The award is then given to artists of promise, as chosen by a distinguished nominating panel and jury. Angell acknowledges a number of influences on his work: the bird illustrators Don Eckelberry and

Morris Graves Morris Cole Graves (August 28, 1910 – May 5, 2001) was an American painter. He was one of the earliest Modern artists from the Pacific Northwest to achieve national and international acclaim. His style, referred to by some reviewers as Mysti ...

, the carvings of the

Haida Haida may refer to: Haida people Many uses of the word derive from the name of an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. * Haida people, an Indigenous ethnic group of North America (Canada) ** Council of the Haida Nati ...

Tlingit The Tlingit or Lingít ( ) are Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. , they constitute two of the 231 federally recognized List of Alaska Native tribal entities, Tribes of Alaska. Most Tlingit are Alaska Natives; ...

and

Tsimshian The Tsimshian (; ) are an Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia in Terrace, British Columbia, Terrace and ...

peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, and a Japanese

Edo-period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

screen carved with crows in the

Seattle Asian Art Museum The Seattle Asian Art Museum (often abbreviated to SAAM) is a museum of Asian art at Volunteer Park in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. Part of the Seattle Art Museum, the SAAM exhibits historic and contem ...

Publications

Writing and illustrating more than a dozen books related to nature, Angell has received the Washington State Writers Award for four of his works, including ''Birds of Prey of the Pacific Northwest Slope'', ''Ravens, Crows, Magpies and Jays'' (University of Washington Press), and ''In the Company of Crows and Ravens'' (Yale University Press). His most recent book, ''The House of Owls'' (Yale University Press), received the 2015 National Outdoor Book Award for nature and the environment writing. His book ''Puget Sound Through an Artist's Eye''''Puget Sound Through an Artist's Eye''
/ref> (University of Washington Press) is a collection of his artistic works in stone, bronze and line along with a narrative that describes his artistic response to the region he lives in. ;As author and illustrator: *
Birds of Prey on the Pacific Northwest Slope
'. Seattle: Pacific Search Press, 1972 *
Owls
'. Seattle; London: University of Washington Press, 1974 *
Ravens, Crows, Magpies and Jays
'. Seattle; London: University of Washington Press, 1978 * (with Kenneth Balcomb)
Marine Birds and Mammals of Puget Sound
'. Seattle: Washington Sea Grant Publication; distributed by the University of Washington Press, 1982 * ''The Artist as Advocate for Nature: A Dialogue of Necessity''. Bainbridge Island, WA: Arbor Fund,

994 Year 994 ( CMXCIV) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * September 15 – Battle of the Orontes: Fatimid forces, under Turkish general Manjutakin (also the governor ...

* (with John Marzluff)
In the Company of Crows and Ravens
'. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2005 *
Puget Sound Through an Artist's Eye
'. Seattle; London: University of Washington Press, 2009 * (with John Marzluff)
Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans
'. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012 *
The House of Owls
'. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015 ;As illustrator: * Gordon H. Orians (1985).
Blackbirds of the Americas
'. Seattle; London: University of Washington Press * Bert Bender (1988).
Sea Brothers: American Sea Fiction since Moby Dick
'. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press * John Marzluff, Russell Balda (1992). ''

'. London: Poyser * Hal Opperman (2003).
A Birder's Guide to Washington
'. Colorado Springs: American Birding Association Over the past half century the artist and his work has been featured in a number of newspaper and magazines articles. Among the most recent in news are:
"Tony Angell: Through Wild Rock,"
''Western Art and Architecture Magazine'', May 2015
"Tony Angell: Liberating the Spirit,"
''Art of the West'', May/June 2016

''Seattle Times'' blog, December 2011

Links

* Artist website
www.tonyangell.net

"Tony Angell Artist,"
film produced by Fidget.tv and underwritten by the Seattle Arts Commission, 2010

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Angell, Tony Living people Artists from Seattle 1940 births University of Washington alumni Sculptors from Washington (state) Artists from Los Angeles Sculptors from California