​I hope that everyone will stay safe and healthy during the coronavirus crisis and send my sincere best wishes to all of those who have been adversely affected at such a difficult time. (JA 14.04.2020)

John Abbott 
'The Fenland Artist'

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Born in the market town of March in the heart of the rich, black, peaty, Fenlands on the Cambridgeshire  and Norfolk border, John is best known for his depictions of the wildfowl & wetlands and the wide skies and dramatic sunsets that are a feature of that unique part of East Anglia

Primarily self-taught, John has drawn & painted all of his life and has enjoyed some considerable success in exhibiting and selling his work and generally promoting arts and crafts in the East Anglia area. Now retired from a 42 year career in fraud prevention & prosecution work for the rail industry, he is now able to devote much more time to his painting and other outdoor pursuits.

Being a great admirer of the late Sir Peter Scott, who he describes as 'one of my heroes', John is particularly pleased to have been asked to paint as 'artist in residence' at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust very first annual Festival of Swans at Welney in Norfolk back in 2002 and at each event during the following ten years.

John has an exhibited many times at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, Welney Visitor Centre and will be exhibiting at many new venues and events over the next few years. 

The nickname by which he is widely known is, 'The Fenland Artist', and this was coined at the time of that first event by the then WWT reserve manager Darrell Stevens when advertising the  'Festival of Swans' event and appropriately, seems to have stuck.

Mainly working in watercolour, but equally happy to paint in oil or acrylic, commissions are always welcomed although John does not enjoy portraiture and for that reason says that he leaves portrait painting to many more skilled artists in that field.
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​Some examples of the diversity of Johns work. The top painting shows a group of male Pochard viewed from the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust observatory at Welney.

Centre: a winter scene as an A3 'Green Arrow' locomotive heads a fast service.

Finally, a sunset view over Kilchurn Castle on the banks of Loch Awe in the western Scottish Highlands.