Portraits of the Prairie

“As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the colour of wine-stains, or of certain seaweeds when they are first washed up. And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running.”—My Ántonia, Willa Cather
 It is often called “Catherland”—Webster County, Nebraska, where the quintessential American novelist Willa Cather spent her childhood and found inspiration for her stories of European immigrants on the prairie. Richard Schilling, with his watercolor paintings and ink sketches, conducts us to that land, to scenes that might have influenced Cather, but as they appear today. Schilling’s images take us to Red Cloud, Cather’s childhood home; to the Willa Cather Memorial Prairie, a botanical jewel of mixed-grass prairie restored to its pre-1900 condition; and on to “the divide,” the high prairie land between the Little Blue River to the north and the Republican River to the south. Each evocative original watercolor is paired with an excerpt from Cather’s work and with the author’s own musings on the history, geography, and ecology of the landscape.

“"Willa Cather created scenes with words and, in his new book, Portraits of the Prairie, Richard Schilling has created similar scenes with watercolors. The resultant pairing of these two artists, both equally enthralled with the beauties of the Nebraskan prairies, is an often stunning look at the rural Midwest."-Kathryn Atwood, BookPleasures.com”

"Even as a devoted Midwesterner, I never thought of the American prairie as a 'romantic' part of the earth - until now! This book, beautiful both in literary conception and in Richard Schilling's exquisitely evocative paintings, makes the prairie as mysterious as Paris, Istanbul, and Shanghai. It will stand, not only as the greatest memorial to the irreplaceable Willa Cather, but to the until-now unknown and unseen parts of our own beloved world." - Georgie Anne Geyer, syndicated columnist, Universal Press Syndicate "Richard Schilling's watercolors, like Cather's prose, have most eloquently told the story of our piece of the country, the prairie, Nebraska." - George Lundeen, bronze sculptor "Richard Schilling's traditional approach to watercolor is the perfect complement to Willa Cather and her love of the prairie. I imagine that if Cather could paint, she would select the palette and visual vocabulary chosen by Schilling." - Jamie Markle,publisher of fine art books and magazines at F+W Media, Inc. "'Photography' is Greek and means 'to draw with light.' Richard Schilling's watercolors of the American prairie would delight those early Greeks... It appears that his art is best made with a marriage between land and sky, where sky manifests ephemeral weather and clouds unique above prairie places." - John Fielder, nature photographer

Richard Schilling, who traveled the world as a missionary dentist and part-time officer aboard cruise ships, chronicled his adventures in his book, Watercolor Journeys. He has been an artist-in-residence in Isle Royale and Mesa Verde national parks. Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate (2004–6) and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, is University of Nebraska Presidential Professor.

Strategic Urban Health Communication Charles C. Okigbo, editor

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