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Robert Verity Clem (1933-2010) The Waiting image 1
Robert Verity Clem (1933-2010) The Waiting image 2
Robert Verity Clem (1933-2010) The Waiting image 3
Robert Verity Clem (1933-2010) The Waiting image 4
Lot 133

Robert Verity Clem
(1933-2010)
The Waiting

26 September – 7 October 2025, 12:00 EDT
Skinner Marlborough, Massachusetts

Sold for US$5,120 inc. premium

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Robert Verity Clem (1933-2010)

The Waiting
signed 'Robert Verity Clem' (lower left); titled, inscribed, and dated 'Chatham. 1987.' and signed under a copyright stamp (all in ink on the reverse)
watercolor on Arches paper
sheet size 20 x 29 3/8 in. (50.8 x 74.6 cm)
Executed in 1987.

Footnotes

Provenance
Robert O. Muller, the former proprietor of Merwin's, New Haven, CT (acquired directly from the artist).
Then by descent.
Estate of Ingebord Lee Muller, 2004.
Sale, Skinner, Boston, September 24, 2010, lot 451.
The present private Massachusetts collection.

N.B.
Robert Verity Clem was a self-taught painter and one of the foremost bird artists in America. A native of Hamden, Connecticut, Clem perfected his precise and sensitive depictions of birds through the thorough study of renderings by ornithologists like Louis Agassiz Fuertes. Clem was committed to presenting birds in the context of their native habitats, and closely observed the murals and background paintings at the Peabody Museum of Yale University for their carefully designed habitat depictions. The result is an artist who combined art and science to create the striking images of landscapes and wildlife that have earned him a devoted following. In 1955 Clem received a commission that would shape his career: an invitation from the industrialist Julius Fleishmann to paint birds in his aviary in Naples, Florida. Later, Clem collaborated with author Peter Matthiessen to create paintings for his book The Shorebirds of North America, published in 1967, which became the foremost text on the subject. Clem remained particularly interested in shorebirds and raptors, studying them closely during the 50 years that he lived in the Cape Cod community of Chatham, Massachusetts.

Clem's artworks are in many private and public collections, including over 30 examples in the Museum of American Bird Art at the Mass Audubon campus in Canton, Massachusetts.

Additional information

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