a day ago
Alastair Robertson obituary
My brother, Alastair Robertson, who has died of cancer aged 75, drew compulsively from an early age, on any scrap of paper. When he lost the use of his right hand in an accident, he transferred his skills to his left. His acutely observed watercolour illustrations of wildlife against delicate backgrounds of washes were widely exhibited in the 1970s and 80s.
He also drew mammals, insects and fish, sometimes with humorous intent, but his passion was birds of prey: he kept a variety of hawks and falcons in his late teens and flew gyrfalcons at a US air force base to prevent bird strikes.
Born surrounded by chalk hills in the Hughenden Valley in Buckinghamshire, Alastair was the elder son of Johnstone (Robbie) Robertson, an RAF officer, and Margaret (nee Barber), who had met during the second world war, when our mother was working in intelligence in the WAAF. He was educated at Berkhamsted school, in Hertfordshire, and at Bath Academy of Art, where he was influenced by Clifford and Rosemary Ellis. In the 70s, as his reputation grew, he became a member of the Society of Wildlife Artists and held exhibitions locally and in the Tryon Gallery in London.
Early in his career he provided a cover illustration of wrens for the RSPB's Birds magazine, after which he illustrated a wide range of books. In the 80s he provided meticulously crafted illustrations of rare birds, based on studying skins in the Natural History Museum's ornithological department at Tring, for Save the Birds, a groundbreaking publication of the world's threatened birds by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and the International Council for Bird Preservation (now Birdlife International).
From the early 80s he lived in a National Trust property near Sharpenhoe in Bedfordshire, where he carried out warden duties on the surrounding chalk downland in lieu of rent. There he met Anna Poray-Gedroyc, an extrovert and bubbly woman, and they married in 1985; she died in 2021.
If Alastair cut an eccentric figure, accompanied by one of his Scottish deerhounds, it was because he was far from the centre of most human life, and happiest sitting on a chalk hill quietly looking at birds. These observations were faithfully rendered into his paintings.
At the end, unable to speak, and conscious that he was dying, he typed out a farewell to the effect that the process was of enormous interest exclusively to him, and ended with 'sorry to be selfish'.
He is survived by me, two nephews, Liam and Patrick, and by a niece, Marion.
