About the Artist
A native of France, Virginie E. Baude has always loved wild animals, especially the predators of the North. She imagined them as she was reading Jack London’s books as a child. Instead of taking the Art route though, Virginie received a Master’s Degree in wildlife biology and learned more about animals’ behaviors and ecology. Her dream was to come to America and study wolves or at least live near their habitat. Life certainly took a different turn and after years of wildlife encounters while in Yellowstone National Park, Denali National Park in Alaska and in the Canadian Rockies, and being immersed in beautiful sceneries, she decided that instead she was going to paint wolves to honor them in her artworks. In order to pursue this new career of wildlife artist, she uses regularly this knowledge gained over the years, but she realized that being a self-taught artist wasn’t going to be good enough, so Virginie studies regularly with master oils painters during workshops, study books, images, goes to art exhibitions, museums to learn new techniques and get the effect she wants in her work. She is most known for her wolves’ pieces and how well she can portray emotion on the canvas. Clients often say of her work that they can feel the soul of her subject in those paintings. She paints in oils and loves to paint her animals as realistically as she thinks needed but likes to keep her backgrounds lose and somewhat modern. She enjoys the drawing immensely and the regular practice with pencils and charcoals to determine the best composition for her future oil paintings. Virginie dreams have really come true in America, by being very passionate and resilient. She loves her new country so much that she decided to become a US citizen in 2017. She is also an avid outdoors woman, and when not painting, she enjoys being in nature as much as possible. Her true passion for the wild took so far to get her private pilot license so she could see her favorite places from another perspective and even access some of the most remote wilderness on her own. She loves the freedom and inspiration she finds in flying. Virginie now splits her time between the Rockies and Alaska. Her work is collected internationally and can be found in galleries through the west and in private collections.