Ralph Hedley b. 1948
British landscape and wildlife painter in oils and watercolours; printmaker.
Ralph Hedley was born in Ashington, Northumberland in 1948. He started his artistic career from a very early age and studied at Newcastle College of Art from 1963 to 1969. Awarded a bursary from the Royal Society of Arts, he then travelled and studied in New York. In 1974 he returned to London, where he had his first one-man exhibition. Since that time he has travelled extensively and his work is in collections around Europe, Australia, Africa, Canada and the United States. Working on private commissions, his clients vary from the small collector to large public companies.
Solo Exhibitions
1974 A. Reed Gallery (London)
1977 Heals Art Galery (London)
1978 Heals Art Gallery (London)
1978 Studio (London)
1979 Ferry Works (London)
1980 Heals Art Gallery (London)
1981 Studio (London)
1983 W. Oxfordshire Arts Association (Bampton, England)
1984 Opix Gallery (London)
1985 Studio (London)
1985 Hamiltons Art Gallery (London)
1986 Carmichael Fine Arts (London)
1987 French C.C. (Nairobi, Kenya)
1987 Boyds (London)
1987 Creative Image Gallery (London)
1988 Marble Arch Gallery (London)
1989 Centre Cultural de La Caixa (Pollença, Mallorca)
1989 Marble Arch Gallery (London)
1989 Hodgsons (London)
1990 Marble Arch Gallery (London)
1990 Hyde Park Gallery (London)
1991 Galería Max (Deià, Mallorca, Spain)
1991 Galería de Arte Cunium (Inca, Mallorca, Spain)
1992 Galería de Arte Xavier Fiol (Palma de Mallorca, Spain)
1994 Galería de Arte Xavier Fiol (Palma de Mallorca, Spain)
1995 Galería Max (Deià, Mallorca, Spain)
The European pine marten (Martes martes), known most commonly as the pine marten in Anglophone Europe, and less commonly also known as baum marten, or sweet marten, is an animal native to Northern Europe belonging to the mustelid family, which also includes mink, otter, badger, wolverine, and weasel.
The European pine marten's fur is usually light to dark brown and grows longer and silkier during the winter, while being short and coarse in the summer. It has a cream- to yellow-coloured "bib" marking on its throats. Its body is up to 53 cm long, with a bushy tail of about 25 cm. Males are slightly larger than females; typically, it weighs around 1.5–1.7 kg. It has an excellent sense of sight, smell, and hearing.
In Great Britain, the species was for many years common only in north-western Scotland. A study in 2012 found that martens have spread from their Scottish Highlands stronghold, north into Sutherland and Caithness and south-eastwards from the Great Glen into Moray, Aberdeenshire, Perthshire, Tayside, and Stirlingshire, with some in the Central Belt, on the Kintyre and Cowal peninsulas and on Skye and Mull. In England, pine martens are extremely rare, and long considered probably extinct. There have been numerous reported sightings of pine martens in Cumbria, however, it was not until 2011 that concrete proof – some scat that was DNA-tested – was found. In July 2015, the first confirmed sighting of a pine marten in England for over a century was recorded by an amateur photographer in woodland in Shropshire. In July 2017, footage of a live pine marten was captured by a camera trap in the North York Moors in Yorkshire. In March 2018 the first ever footage of a pine marten in Northumberland was captured by the Back from the Brink pine marten project.