Tony Angell


Tony Angell is an American wildlife artist, environmental educator, and writer. He has lived in Seattle, Washington, since 1959.

Life

Angell was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1940. His father was a private eye, and his mother a painter and teacher. Angell grew up in the San Fernando Valley. As a child, 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.
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. He remained in this position for over thirty years.
He was active in the Nature Conservancy, with time as chairman and as a member of the board of its Washington chapter. He received the national organization's highest award of the Golden Oak Leaf for his work in establishing the Skagit River Bald Eagle Natural Area. Likewise he was recognized as a by the Puget Sound Keeper's Alliance in 2014. His outreach with both his writing and artwork resulted in his at the University of Washington.

Artwork

Angell makes sculptures in bronze and stone and has shown them regularly for some forty years. He has worked in chlorite, granite, marble, sandstone, serpentine, slate and soapstone.
Among his many public commissions Angell includes Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo, the Seattle Aquarium, the City of Redmond, WA, the Mount Baker Ski Area, Sleeping Lady in Leavenworth, WA and the public libraries of Bainbridge and Lopez Island. His work is part of the Harborview Medical Center and the public collection of the Seattle Business Center. His sculptural work is included in the collections of the Museum of Northwest Art, the Seattle Art Museum, the Frye Art Museum and the , as well as the Gilcrease Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Cornell University has his paintings in their collections as does the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England.
Awards for his artwork include the Master Artist Medal from the of Wausau Wisconsin, and a 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 awarded a in Angell's name. These awards are named in honor of those who have left a lasting impact on the Pacific Northwest region. These awards are 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, the carvings of the Haida, Tlingit and Tsimshian peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, and a Japanese Edo-period screen carved with crows in the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

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 , and '. His most recent book, T received the for nature and the environment writing. His book ' 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:
;As illustrator:
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 have been: