An influential painter and naturalist, Robert Bateman was born in Toronto, Canada, in 1930. Interested in both art and wildlife from an early age, Bateman knew by twelve that both would serve to be his life's passions. As a teenager Bateman became a Junior Naturalist at the Royal Ontario Museum, where he gained vital exposure to ornithology, field study, and specimen drawing. At the age of seventeen Bateman spent the first of three consecutive summers working on a government run wildlife research camp in Algonquin Park. His work at the park further developed Bateman's skills as a naturalist, but also served to influence him as an artist. Three centuries prior, the same area had served as inspiration for various members of Canada's famous Group of Seven painters. Bateman's paintings from this period echo the post-impressionistic style seen in their landscapes. At age eighteen Bateman won a Junior League scholarship for art tuition, which allowed him study with Gordon Payne at the Arts and Letters Club for two years. Bateman attended the University of Toronto and received an honors degree in geography in 1954. While in school, Bateman took night classes in art from Carl Schaefer, whom he studied under for five years. Throughout this period Bateman participated in numerous geological surveys in Newfoundland and Canada's Arctic, where he continued to sketch wildlife and collect specimens—many of which he donated to the Royal Ontario Museum. In 1955, Bateman received his teaching degree from the Ontario College of Education, thereby beginning a meaningful twenty-year career as a high school teacher. Bateman's choice in career was in large part influenced by the freedom to travel that it allowed him. Having already traveled across the United States and much of Western Europe, Bateman embarked on a fourteen month expedition around the world in 1957. With one friend and a Land Rover, he journeyed across equatorial Africa, northern India, through the Himalayas into Myanmar, Thailand and India before culminating in Australia. In 1963 Bateman saw an exhibition of Andrew Wyeth's work at the Albright-Knox Gallery. The realism of Wyeth's work served as a catalyst for Bateman, and he quickly shifted from the cubist and post-impressionist styles he had been working in. Additionally, in the same year, Bateman moved to Nigeria to teach for two years, where he entered a Nairobi art competition. Until this point Bateman's love of art and wildlife had remained separate, but the paintings of African animals that he submitted combined his two passions cohesively for the first time. While he did not win the competition, his art caught the attention of many patrons, and an American couple began selling his work from their gallery in Nairobi. Upon returning to Canada, Bateman continued painting and quickly gained a following in the art world. In 1976 Bateman stopped teaching to devote all of his time to painting, and after his first solo exhibition sold out opening night, it proved a wise career move.