 Simon Coombes is primarily known as Simon Combes
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  A wildlife artist who spent most of his time in Kenya, Africa, Simon Combes painted primarily African wildlife in landscape, especially buffalo and cats.
Combes moved to Kenya with his family at age six. He served in the British military in Kenya. While in the service he would sketch local people in his spare time. Combes tells a story of when he was on leave in Nairobi and he heard of a couple that were looking for two Masai portrait paintings. Simon Combes purchased two postcards and painted the portraits from them. They were the first works he ever sold.
In Kenya Combes headed the airborne unit where he trained paratroopers and translated military instructions into Swahili. In 1969, while still in the military he had a near sell-out exhibition at a gallery in Nairobi. Combes was looking for a career after his military service was over and he decided to give painting a try.
Simon Combes had immediate success selling his work. He eventually got to the point in his career where almost all of his paintings were commissioned. Combes painted every day for seven to eight hours and he completed about one painting a month.
One of his paintings is a 4 x 12 foot landscape, "There Was a Time", and is the largest format print ever printed by the Greenwich Workshop. Combes has also written a book, "Great Cats: Stories and Art from a World Traveller."
On December 13, 2004, Combes was killed by a cape buffalo, ironically one of the
species he is famous for depicting in his painting.
Sources include:
"Wildlife Art", November 2000
Ryan Jacque for the Society of Animal Artists, 12/14/2004
"Wildlife Art", January 2005
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