The Secret World of Renaldo Kuhler [Hardcover]

A sumptuous monograph presenting for the first time the extraordinarily imaginative and delightful work of visionary artist Renaldo Kuhler (American, 19312013).

The Secret World of Renaldo Kuhlercatapults a thrilling new discovery into the pantheon of the most accomplished visionaryor outsiderartists. Like Henry Darger, Howard Finster, George Widener, and Adolf W?lfli, Renaldo Kuhler was an exceptionally gifted artist and possessed an imagination all his own. By day Kuhler was a self-taught scientific illustrator under the employ of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, for which he created thousands of wonderfully precise illustrations of myriad natural history specimensreptiles, fish, turtles, and the like.

Renaldo Kuhler was an unusual individual, as was instantly clear from his appearance alone. Six-foot-four, with a white beard and ponytail, he wore a custom-tailored uniform consisting of a sleeveless Kelly green suit jacket with wide, black, notched lapels, epaulets, and brass buttons, a matching suit vest, yellow flannel dress shirt, a fleur-de-lis Boy Scout neckerchief, and tight-fitting knee-length shorts (cotton-blend lederhosen). However, unbeknownst even to family, friends, and coworkers, Kuhler was more than an eccentric, gifted scientific illustrator. He was a prolific visionary artist, who, as a teenager in the late 1940s, invented an imaginary country he named Rocaterraniaafter Rockland County, New York, where he had lived as a child. For the next sixty years, in secret, he illustrated the nations entire history and the prominent characters of its populace.

Rocaterrania is a fantastical world, a richly illustrated amalgam of Kuhlers personal cultural and aesthetic fascinations. Situated just north of the Adirondacks in New York, at the CanadaUnited States border, Rocaterrania is a sovereign nation of immigrants, from Scandinavia to Eastern Europe. Kuhler invented a complete world populated by a l3