Artist shows bird crossing river (5)
I believe the answer is:
corot
'artist' is the definition.
(painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1796-1875)
'bird crossing river' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'river' could be 'r' (abbreviation for river) and 'r' is located in the answer.
'bird' could be 'coot' (coot is a kind of bird) and 'coot' is present in the remaining letters.
No letters remain.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'shows' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for corot that I've seen before include "French artist" , "Fr. landscape artist, d. 1875" , "Barbizon School artist" , "18c French painter" , "19th century French painter" .)