I've long admired Eldridge's work. He is, in my estimation, one of the country's finest sporting painters. It's a real treat to see that he paints oils and watercolors with equal authority. A fine, fine artist. In fact, Eldridge is one sporting artist whose work will someday be discussed as being the equal of Pleissner and Ripley. His work always shows a quality that [some in the field] do not have. Maybe it is that Eldridge really knows his subject from actual field experience.

David Hagerbaumer, noted wildfowl artist

I have admired your work for some time and was delighted to discover that a book with color plates and a biography by George Reiger is available. Enclosed is my check to cover the cost of what I am sure is both a treasure and a bargain! In my opinion, much of what is called "sporting art" today is really sporting illustration, sufficiently well done to accompany a story perhaps, but without much value without the story. However for me, your work goes beyond simply showing a "sporting" event and is a work sufficient in itself. In this day of sound bites, and virtual realities, it's rare to find someone that can still hang in with Winslow Homer and Andrew Wyeth. From where I stand, that's first rate company.

Robert Lindsey 4/2/06

The fine oil and watercolor paintings of Eldridge Hardie ... fulfill our twentieth century expectation that the sporting artist go beyond animal portraiture to being a competent landscapist and figure painter...Hardie is a skilled translator of ideas - most particularly of the concept of "sportsman," ...

Susan Hallsten McGarry, Editor, SOUTHWEST ART

Wildlife Art News recently called Hardie an artist whose "experience, incredible talent, and flair for adventure have given him as much name recognition as A. Lassell Ripley, and Ogden Pleissner."...Collectors and galleries know his work expresses the finest traditions of sporting art.

Harry Bruce, Editor, ATLANTIC SALMON JOURNAL

...and Eldridge Hardie, whose spare, clean A Pheasant in a Plum Thicket is one of the most poignant and memorable compositions this writer has ever seen.

Tom Davis, Sporting Art: The American Contribution, WILDLIFE ART NEWS

Hardie is considered by many to be one of the top four or five contemporary sporting artists in the country...[He] has the ability to recreate the elements of a scene so suggestively, and yet so accurately, that a hunter or fisherman who views one of his oils or watercolors feels that he has walked, or waded, in that very spot.

Bob Saile, Outdoor Editor, THE DENVER POST

He is one of the most respected, accomplished, and completely skilled sporting artists of the contemporary era.

Tom Davis, SPORTING CLASSICS

I respond to Eldridge's work because it captures the spirit of the moment. His dogs and hunters always portray a scene that I want to be part of. Eldridge is a painter and not a renderer of photographs.

William Kerr, art collector and founder of the NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WILDLIFE ART

Eldridge Hardie is the real deal. I know of no sporting artist that has spent more time in the field than El. The authenticity that we sportsmen relate to in his wonderful art reflects those long hours. I think history will be very kind to his efforts.

Bubba Wood, Collectors Covey

This innocence — this open-hearted joy — is part of what gives Eldridge Hardie his ability to capture those special moments in hunting and fishing that blend both ecstasy and pensiveness.

George Reiger, outdoor/conservation writer

"Reverence, in its deepest and most honest form, — is the word that comes first to mind when I look at Eldridge's work; reverence for these special moments and scenes and the blessed thingness of sport but reverence also for the painting itself, its needs as important as those of what he is depicting. In the end, it is the great pleasure an Eldridge Hardie painting offers to the serious sportsman, its embodiment of the inner life of sport, that makes his work so memorable."

Nick Lyons, fishing author/publisher

"I have a lifelong awe of artists and your work has pleased me through the years. When I saw you were going to illustrate my column I almost shouted that I'd do it for free but my better judgment arrived just in time. Anyway, it's like being paid twice for the stuff…Again, our hearty thanks and keep on with your striking (and errorless) illustrations."

Charles Waterman, sporting author/journalist