Chris Manley ( - )

Chris Manley lives in Wareham, Dorset, England.  His early training was aa a chartered accountant, then wine merchant, then commodity broker,
followed by 15 years farming trout.

In 1987 he gained a BTEC Diploma in Natural History Illustration after 3 years as a ‘mature’ student at Poole Art Collect, having continued to simultaneously run his own trout farm.  His firm sculptures in wood were produced in 1992.

Encouraged by public response to his carvings he soon gave up the trout to sell work around the country at the CLA Game Fair, Badminton Horse Trials, Royal Bath & West Show and the like.  In 1995 Chris won the £500 first prize at the National Exhibition of Carved Bird, Pensthorpe, Norfolk, where he still exhibits annually.

Chris has had work selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London.  He annually demonstrates his skills as Artist in Residence at the Nature in Art Museum at Wallsworth Hall in Gloucestershire.

He was elected to the Royal British Sculptors Society in 1999.

Over the past four years much of his time has been taken up with producing large bronze pieces, such as elephants, tigers and birds of prey, for installation on cruise-liners.

He is now producing smaller scale bronzes more suitable for private collectors, and this year has been thrilled to have a piece selected for the annual Birds in Art exhibition, alongside internally famous artists, at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in America.  He has just been elected to join the 400 or so members of the Society of Animal Artists in New York.