Frans Mulder was born in 1955 and educated in Cradock, Eastern Cape. He received a Diploma in Fine Arts at the Port Elizabeth Technikon in 1975. 

 

He was involved in Architectural Space Planning in South Africa, and also did a stint in New York in the 1980s as Director of Design.

He subsequently spent time in the Tourism and the Design Industry (until 2004), before getting back into art and relocating to Bedford in the Eastern Cape, from where he ran his studio on a farm which was in close proximity to game farms. Frans then moved to his studio to Napier in the Western Cape.

Frans is renowned for his passion for and portrayal of the African Wild dog which formed the focus of most of his portfolio.
Frans has exhibited his work throughout South Africa, and many of his artworks are now in collections and homes in both South Africa and abroad.

The subjects for the works are all taken from life. The Wild Dogs are an endangered species which are being reintroduced to the Eastern Cape in selected reserves. Frans used images of the wild dogs as reference only and not to paint a photographic record.

 

His rhinoceros study (Long Tom) was of a white rhinoceros in a provincial reserve in the Eastern Cape and had the longest horn recorded: over 1m in length. This painting was donated to WESSA (Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa), and all monies raised from the sale of it were donated to Rhino Research.

 

Frans Mulder's work shows the lives of Wild Dogs at their den by means of observing them, reflecting on their power and constant motion, and then transferring the image to large sheets of paper.

 

Using the method of making marks, partly erasing them, making more marks, and reconstructing the structure and movement of the images, these drawings become works of art rather than just photographic image representations. Big in scale, the images of the dogs, sometimes larger than life, move and bounce over the paper just as they do over the veld.

 

Frans expressed his passion for animals in his wildlife paintings and he focused his attention on the survival of the endangered wild dogs. These were the subjects of most of his works and are taken from live interaction with the animals.

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Frans passed away 2 June 2019.

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Frans' paintings of Wild Dogs are now very rare. There are only 3 left. 'On A Hunting Run' is one of the remaining available works. 

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