From his earliest school days, Tony Forrest has been passionate about art and in 1978 he went on to art college in Cornwall. However, Tony was so inspired after watching a TV programme about the work of renowned wildlife artist David Shepherd he says “from that moment, I was hooked on painting animals!”

His first one-man exhibition was held at Marwell Zoo in Hampshire and, in the spring of 1990, he embarked upon the first of many trips to Africa.

Tony Forrest has enjoyed enormous success since those early days, with major shows in Birmingham and London, as well as in the United States of America. He is a member of the Society of Animal Artists in the USA, and the Worldwide Nature Artists Group.

A passionate conservationist, Tony Forrest recently raised £10,800 for the Tusk Trust, a charity which funds various conservation projects in Africa. On a recent painting expedition Tony  visited the dense jungles of Rwanda to see the silverback gorillas and explored the Masai Mara to capture the great migration of the millions of zebra and wildebeest.