Fred F. SchererDied 25 Nov 2013 at age 98 (born 1 Mar 1915).American artist, illustrator and naturalist who joined the American Natural History Museum at age 19, as an apprentice to assist in making dioramas, the backgrounds and senery to displays of stuffed animals. He learned his skills on the job. His art was to give depth, where there was none, and reality to re-creations of natural habitat that melded seamlessly into the physical display of taxidermy. The heydey, when most of his work was done, was in the period of the 1940s to 1960s. He would take field trips to view what he was to paint, to best get the first-hand feel of the interplay of light and colours of the landscape and fauna. In his New York Times obituary, he was credited with an uncanny ability to summon the illusion of air currents, odours and bugs to fill the space between in the several feet between the back of the case and the observer's glass.« |
