Welcome to David Ord Kerr's Website
A number of David's works are now available as individually signed Limited Edition Giclée prints.
David Ord Kerr Dip. R.A.S. has earned the reputation as one of the finest British bird painters - particularly of exotic birds. His ability to combine fine detail with wonderful vibrant colours makes his subjects really come alive. He has a large and growing following of collectors around the world.
David was educated at Hertford Grammar School where he concentrated on zoology, botany and painting. He has always been interested in natural history, particularly birds and reptiles. For a period he was employed as a gamekeeper and then at a small private zoo before adopting painting as a full-time career.
He worked as a painter until 1978 when, as a member of the Wallace Expedition to the Amazon, he was the expedition artist producing drawings of fish for the British Museum and plant drawings to assist with a monkey breeding project at Chester Zoo.
He was chosen as one of one hundred Artists from around the world commissioned to produce works to be sold to raise money for the World Wide Fund.
Every year the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wisconsin holds a prestigious "Birds in Art " event seeking to present the very best contemporary artistic interpretations of birds and related subject matter. Approximately 100 works are selected by a jury review of slides - David's work has been selected on numerous occasions!
Pair of Hyacinth Macaws
Watercolour 32½i x 22 inches
It was not until he returned to England that he completed a foundation course at the Hertfordshire College of Art and Design, followed by a three-year course at the Royal Academy Schools under Peter Greenham RA with Roderic Bennet as his personal tutor, where he won prizes for both anatomy drawing and landscape painting.
David is active in seeking reference material for his work and has recently travelled to the Kalahari and has revisited the Amazon. He is one of the very few Europeans privileged to meet and travel with the Yanomami people.
Sketching in the Amazon - 2007
David's work now encompasses a wide range of subjects. He has undertaken a series of thirty paintings of birds and animals native to a particular Middle East country. These paintings will form part of an extensive Royal collection.
He lives in Norfolk with his wife and two children, "commuting" each day to an old Methodist chapel which he bought as a studio in 1998, His companion at work is a hawk - "Pallas" which he flies locally.
David and Pallas