On view in the Library's Sheffer Gallery from December 6, 2022, through February 28, 2023, is a retrospective of Dick Rauh's exquisite botanical works. There will be a reception and artist talk with Rauh and Miggs Burroughs in the Trefz Forum on January 29 from 2 to 4 pm.
Rauh came to botanical painting in retirement, after a career in motion picture special effects. In addition to earning a certificate in botanical illustration from The New York Botanical Garden, in 2001 he received his doctorate in plant sciences from the City University of New York. Rauh's work won the Gold Medal and "Best in Show" awards at the 2006 Royal Horticultural Society Show in London.
Rauh is a member of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Florilegium Society. He also is past president of both the American Society of Botanical Artists and the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, where he continues to be a member. His work is in the permanent collections of the Lindley Library in London, the Shirley Sherwood Collection in Kew Gardens, Queens, the New York State Museum, and the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon University. He is an instructor in the botanical illustration certificate program at the New York Botanical Garden since 1994 where he was named "Teacher of the Year 2010." He teaches widely in local senior centers.
In 2014, Rauh had a solo show in the Steinhardt Gallery of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. His work has been included in the Annual International Shows of the American Society of Botanical Artists. You can check him out on the internet in the site Science-art.com, and he was interviewed recently for the blog seeingitclearlynow.com under One Man’s Second Act.
The show, being a retrospective, includes two important images. The featured image is one of Rauh's most recent works, Weathered Wood with Moss and Lichens, 2022, which the artist completed for this exhibit. The second image is a work the artist created back in early 1990s, Decodon vertiicillatus, 1991.
