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Anne Worsham Richardson opened Birds I View Gallery in downtown Charleston more than three decades ago. Since then she has earned a reputation for being one of the world's foremost painters of birds and animals. Recognized as a truly great artist, her works have been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe.

All of Richardson's work reveals her deep appreciation and respect for all life, and the need to protect our natural resources. The artist maintains a wildlife sanctuary outside her studio where birds are brought to her in various stages of disability. Under her care, they often recover and are able to be returned to the wild. In the meantime, she uses the birds as models for many of her paintings. This opportunity to study them at close range helps Richardson capture a lifelike portrayal of each subject in her work.

Richardson is the first woman bird painter ever to be selected by the National Federation in Washington, D.C. to receive the "Art Print of the Year Award." Her watercolor of the California quail was selected for this honor and published in National Wildlife Magazine in 1970, and 18 of her paintings have been reproduced on National Wildlife Christmas cards.

"As I looked out the window one afternoon, I saw two policeman coming up the drive. I thought, what have I done now?Officer Gobel held his hat very carefully for inside was a nest with Carolina Wren nestlings. He explained that he and his buddy had been up the Edisto in his little fishing boat and they were surprised to hear chirping under the boat seat. In a yellow bucket under the seat was a wren's nest. It was a long way from home before the nest was discovered. The little birds were suffering from lack of food so they were brought to my sanctuary.

Two wrens survived the very hot day and I was able to raise them, paint them and release them back to the wild".

"Very early one morning the phone rang and the lady from Sandhurst said her name was Robin, and she had a baby cardinal that had just become an orphan, because a cat had jumped on the nest and killed the nestling's mother.Robin was crying and said she would bring the helpless survivor to my studio sanctuary.

When I looked into the folded kleenex in Robin's hand the little bird had no feathers and was about the size of a bumble bee. I made the newly hatched cardinal an incubator using a small basket for a nest and placing it into a glass tank warmed with a heating pad.

The cardinal is almost nine years old and is deeply imprinted with me. I have painted it 7 times".

• Born near Turbeville, South Carolina, Anne Richardson became a painter of birds and received attention from collectors including Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Her painting "Carolina Wren and Yellow Jessamine" hangs in the South Carolina State House in Columbia. "Pine Grosbecks" was on the cover of "National Wildlife Magazine". She was the first woman painter to receive the "Art Print of the Year" award.

Married to Johannes Peter Paszek, she lives (2003) on an estate near Charleston. The couple have created a bird sanctuary there. In 1991, Anne Richardson was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame.