Eirene Hunter
Young Highlanders

We are delighted to welcome Eirene Hunter, a well established Animal Artist, onto The Wallington Gallery web site. 

After leaving Glasgow School of Art, where she qualified as a textile designer, Eirene worked for the United Africa Company as a studio designer.

Marrying a Naval Officer meant a change in her life and she travelled the world with her husband and two sons tackling any art orientated work that came her way, from teaching to painting scenery for the stage.

Two years in the United States of America gave her the opportunity and time to start her career in animal painting, a subject she had always been extremely interested in. She not only exhibited in the States but also gained recognition as an animal artist working on commission.

On returning to Britain she developed her knowledge of different breeds, working closely with the breeders of pedigree animals and portraying them in suitable settings, gundogs working in the field, Clydesdale horses ploughing, prize bulls on the owner’s own property etc.

Working in this way with the animals concerned meant travelling all over the country, working on farms, stables, kennels or anywhere else both at home and abroad. She visited the USA annually for many years and built up a reputation for her dog paintings there. Her paintings have gone all over the world from Australia to Canada..

Her work appears in “ Two Hundred Years of British Farm Animals” published by The British Museum and she is referred to in the ‘ A Keen Eye ‘ a reference book on Highland cattle by Una Flora Cochrane. 

She was commissioned by the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society to paint an Aberdeen Angus bull for their offices in Edinburgh. The Texel sheep Society commissioned her to produce a Limited Edition print for their 25th Anniversary and The Clydesdale Horse Society commissioned a Limited Edition print for the Millennium, 

Some animals are pets but many are pedigree Champion animals from all breeds of domestic stock, cattle, sheep, horses, cats and dogs even a few pigs and goats. She has become well known in the Scottish breeds of Blackface sheep, Highland cattle, Highland ponies and Border Collies among others but has also painted many of the breeds classified as ’rare’. Her own breed is Welsh Springer Spaniels and she has painted some of the most famous animals in that breed.

For many years she had a stand at the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh and a lot of her clients met her there for the first time.