Biography

Rob O’Meara was born and raised in Kenya. He travelled extensively in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Throughout his life, he spent much of his time on safari, developing a deep appreciation for the region’s wildlife and landscapes.

Rob painted from an early age, and in 1972 he devoted his career to painting. His subjects are drawn primarily from the many journeys and encounters he had on safari over several decades. His early paintings were often en plein-air, although latterly he worked from his studio in both oils and gouache watercolours.

Rob’s landscape paintings and wildlife studies capture the special beauty of East Africa’s diverse flora, fauna, and geography, with an eye for the rare and the particular, as much as for the region’s more famous wildlife and vistas. Rob’s paintings of Kenya’s traditional nomadic peoples with their cattle, camels and goats capture a vanishing way of life in balance with nature.

Rob had his work showcased in New York, London, Saudi Arabia and New Zealand, but is known best at home in Kenya.

Rob passed away at his home on the Burguret River on the slopes of Mt Kenya, in November 2022.