Original works of art

Robert Abbett grew up in Hammond, Indiana, and was educated at Purdue and the University of Missouri before working as an illustrator in Chicago in 1950. During the next twenty years, he established himself as a successful commercial artist, and from 1959 to 1962 he taught illustration techniques at the Silvermine Guild in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Abbett started his painting career when he moved in 1971 to his current address in Bridgewater, Connecticut, where he was to take up fly fishing and competitive skeet shooting . The wife of one of his hunting companions commissioned a portrait of Luke, an English Setter. Abbett states that he traded one of his paintings for his first gun dog, a German Wirehaired Pointer, and he never looked back.

Abbett paints with a loose, impressionistic style, with a palette of predominantly warm, autumnal colors. As Abbett states, "The animals themselves inspire many of my pictures and working with them has taught me to see them as individuals, not necessarily with human traits as Disney might, but still unique with their own personalities..... sporting/wildlife artists fall into two broad stylistic categories: Those who are mainly interested in depicting the zoological details of birds and animals, and those who are more interested in the activity within the setting.... Personally, I am more interested in seeing my subjects, animal and human, as part of a bigger scene...."

Abbett's work is represented in the Genessee County Sporting Museum and the American Kennel Club Museum of The Dog, among others.