ARTIST
calloused from holding ropes and reins.
A native daughter of Tennessee, she is a
consummate horse and dog person — a naturalist
never far from her sketchpad, camera and
binoculars. Hundreds of intricate ink drawings of
riding horses and dog breeds fill her file drawers.
These drawings are the ones that first brought her
acclaim — way back, when it wasn’t clear yet that
Lyn St. Clair would, in a few decades, become one of
the quiet rising stars of contemporary wildlife art.
Before the truck reaches a distant timbered
ridgeline, she points to game trails where she’s
seen black bears and mountain lions feeding on
elk and deer carcasses, hills where she’s heard
wolves howl. Along the way, she calls my attention
to soaring golden eagles, red-tailed hawks and
harriers dive-bombing prey. I am a Montanan and
it quickly becomes clear that one of the reasons
Lyn’s work exudes such vitality is the years of direct
observation infused into her brushstrokes.
Born in 1963, to artist parents Betty and Dean St.
Clair, Lyn grew up on a farm outside of Nashville.
“I truly wanted to be an artist from the time I
could hold a crayon,” she says, standing beneath a
wonderfully contemporary horse painting completed
by her father, who was a successful commercial
illustrator.
“I live what I paint,” she says, noting that she doesn’t
buy photographs to use as reference or take pictures
of animals at game farms and zoos. “I want to be
authentic. I believe in painting what I know and if
I’m going to paint it, I better know it.” Her fans say
that conveying the spirit of her subjects, based upon
firsthand contact, is what gives her work integrity.
Debbie Gaskins of Thomasville owns several original
works by St. Clair. Her daughter has a grizzly bear
painting that she received as a wedding present,
hanging above her mantel. The work emerged after
Lyn staked out a venue and hunched at water level
in order to observe the Great Bear fording a river.
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