Nancy Bass honors the beauty and character of each animal she portrays. Her paintings explore our relationship to the animal world and the intelligence and sensitivity of animals. Her first memory of making art is a series of poodles she drew at age three, using every color of crayon in a Crayola box. Bass’s devotion to representing animals has continued ever since. Bass was born in 1957 in Peoria, IL and studied art at Drake University in Iowa. For thirty-five years, she lived and worked on a farm in Virginia where she raised a herd of cattle with her husband. There she began to develop her first significant body of works: a series of close-up portraits that recognize cows as individual, knowing subjects. Bass has received honors from the Art2Life International Competition, The Artist’s Magazine, The Richeson 75 Animals, Birds, and Wildlife Competition, and the Bethesda Painting Awards. She now lives and works in Guilford, CT.