Robert Glen (1940-2024) - Naturalist, Father, Adventurer, Joker, Sculptor
On October 27th 2023, we lost Rob Glen one of our brightest, guiding safari lights. Rob was Kerry’s dad of course, but he was also so many other things.
Rob was best known for his vivid bronze sculptures of wildlife and traditional cultures. We were always reminded of his renown when film crews would corner him as he visited his largest and best known work, the Mustangs of Los Colinas in Irving Texas.
Other people knew Rob from his days racing Rally cars, his capacity for speed in a vehicle would leave his non rally friends always with shakes.
It would have been his Bird friends that probably would have been most shocked, being a less horsepowered bunch. But bird friends and wildlife friends Rob had in flocks and herds. His prowess with African natural history born out by his discovery of several new species with his partner Sue Stolberger. In Ruaha National Park, Rob and Sue spent decades helping the park and documenting its rich natural history in books, paintings and sculptures. It was their own observations in Ruaha of the Red-billed Hornbills and White-headed Black Chats that led to the description of two new species, The Tanzanian Red-billed Hornbill and the Ruaha Chat.
In a horse trailer behind his tent Rob would work on his bronzes after first capturing in sketches the essence of a subject. Rob always preserved not only the dignity of the animals and people he sculpted but particularly their movement and their power.
Rob’s bronzes are represented in the best wildlife collections on Earth including among the collection of the late Queen Elizabeth. His life work was recognized in 2019 by the National Museum of Wildlife Art when he received a Rungius Award for his “artistic interpretation and preservation of wildlife and its habitat” . It is among the most prestigous of wildlife awards on Earth.
For young kids on safari in the 1970s though, Rob was way way more than any of this. Rob was pure fun. Devilish fun. I remember one occasion when we were collecting firewood for our camp in the Aberdares. We were piled onto the back of the vehicle when Rob spotted a black rhino in a nearby glade. Recognizing the a young male in his prime, Rob clasped his hands and made a loud, sharp blow—the kind that would provoke the animal. It worked immediately. The rhino charged toward us at a fast-paced trot. My dad, driving the vehicle, reacted quickly but the Land Rover stalled abruptly on a hidden tussock of grass just as the rhino reached the edge of our clearing. The close and larger-than-life animal stopped, surprised, perhaps unsure why we weren’t behaving like a normal competitor. I’ll never forget the sight of its flared nostrils, steaming with vapor in the cold air, and the sound of its massive foot pawing the ground. Then, the rhino charged again, this time in earnest. At close range, my dad managed to rev the engine and swerve the vehicle out of the way, narrowly escaping by only a few feet. It remains and maybe always will, my most vivid and powerful memory of safari. It was early events like this that led Kerry and myself to study Biology and Environmental Sciences respectively and then to pursue a kind of safari that is always full of adventure and natural history.
On September first we celebrated Rob in Nairobi at a gathering at his gallery and beside his old workshop. Friends from all his various interests were represented and it was a fun day of toasts and laughs, remembering Rob’s achievements, his great sense of humor and his great approach towards life.
We shall miss you Rob but we will always remember you and your great reverence for the natural world. We hope that in doing so we can also live lives as rich and as meaningful as your own.
James Christian