Renaldo Gillet Kuhler (born Ronald Otto Louis Kuhler; November 21, 1931 – June 2, 2013)
was an American
scientific illustrator
Technical Illustration is illustration meant to visually communicate information of a technical nature. Technical illustrations can be components of technical drawings or diagrams. Technical illustrations in general aim "to generate expressive ...
and
outsider artist. He worked for three decades as a scientific illustrator for the
North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and spent most of his life creating and illustrating an
imaginary country called Rocaterrania.
Early life
Kuhler was born in
Teaneck, New Jersey in 1931 to
Otto Kuhler, a German industrial desgner, and Belgian Simonne Gillet Kuhler. He had one sibling, an older sister named Winona. In 1938, the Kuhler family moved to
Blauvelt
Blauvelt is a hamlet and census-designated place, formerly known as Greenbush and then Blauveltville, in the town of Orangetown, Rockland County, New York, United States. It is located north of Tappan, east of Nauraushaun and Pearl River, south ...
, in
Rockland County
Rockland County is the southernmost county on the west side of the Hudson River in the U.S. state of New York. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. It is about from the Bronx at their closest points. The county's population, as of th ...
, New York. He was sent to various boarding schools as a child, where he was bullied by classmates and teachers. At home, his mother was alternately abusive and neglectful. When Otto Kuhler retired in 1948, he moved the family to Colorado where they lived on the remote KZ Ranch. To cope with the isolation, Kuhler created a fictional world that he called Rocaterrania, after his childhood home of Rockland County.
Kuhler eventually devised a
constructed language
A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction. ...
for Rocaterrania, inspired by various
Afro-Asiatic
The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic su ...
dialects.
From 1954 to 1957, he attended the
University of Colorado
The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Co ...
's Denver Extension Center, after which he moved to
Boulder
In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive.
In c ...
. He graduated in 1960 or 1961 with a B.A. in History.
Career
While in college, Kuhler hand-lettered the titles for Stan Brakhage's experimental film ''
Dog Star Man
''Dog Star Man'' is a series of short experimental films, all directed by Stan Brakhage, featuring Jane Wodening. It was released in instalments between 1961 and 1964 and comprises a prelude and four parts. In 1992, ''Dog Star Man'' was includ ...
''.
After graduating, he worked as a curator of history at the Eastern Washington State Historical Society in
Spokane, Washington
Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Canada ...
from 1962 to 1967, after which he returned to Colorado for a two-year program in
museology
Museology or museum studies is the study of museums. It explores the history of museums and their role in society, as well as the activities they engage in, including curating, preservation, public programming, and education.
Terminology
The w ...
.
In 1969, he moved to
Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the List of North Carolina county seats, seat of Wake County, North Carolina, Wake County in the United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most ...
for a job at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, where he would work for the next 30 years until his retirement in 1999. For this, he
taught himself scientific illustration.
In 2001, ''
National Geographic Today'' profiled him and his work as a scientific illustrator.
Rocaterrania
Fictional history
Rocaterrania, a small country on the border between Canada and New York State, was fictionally founded in 1931 by former Russian noble August Phillippe Romanovski and his French-Belgian wife, Mary Catherine de Rochelle. August Phillipe declared himself the first Emperor of Rocaterrania, ruling from the capital of Ciudad Eldorado. The small country quickly grew into a mosaic of different cultures as immigrants arrived.
After August Phillipe's death in 1940, his widow ruled as Empress Catherine. Catherine's tyrannical reign included her practice of
neuterizing street urchins to turn into her personal "
neutant" servants. In 1948, upon Catherine's death, her brother Georg Nicholai de Rochelle became Rocaterrania's third and last emperor. In 1951, a civil war forced the emperor to grant limited autonomy to the region of New Serbia, but his repressive policies were still too intolerable, leading to his overthrow and execution in a revolution in 1953. In a second revolution the next year, socialist revolutionary Gorghendi Kahn was elected. Reviewers have noted that this fictional history parallels the real-world
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and ad ...
.
Rocaterrania is religiously diverse, and gave rise to a new
syncretic religion called Ojallism (derived from the Spanish word
Ojalá
''In sha'Allah'' (; ar, إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ, ʾIn shāʾ Allāh ), also spelled In shaa Allah, InshAllah, Insya Allah and İnşAllah is an Arabic language expression meaning "if god wills" or "god willing". It was mentioned i ...
), which includes aspects of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and reveres
Krishna
Krishna (; sa, कृष्ण ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the Supreme god in his own right. He is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love; and is one ...
,
Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was ...
, and
Baháʼu'lláh
Baháʼu'lláh (born Ḥusayn-ʻAlí; 12 November 1817 – 29 May 1892) was the founder of the Baháʼí Faith. He was born to an aristocratic family in Persia, and was exiled due to his adherence to the messianic Bábí Faith. In 1863, in I ...
as prophets as well.
A new language, Rocaterranski, developed from the many immigrant languages in Rocaterrania, chiefly English, Spanish, German, and Yiddish. Its original writing system was based on the
Hebrew alphabet
The Hebrew alphabet ( he, wikt:אלפבית, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew languag ...
, but it later moved toward a
Cyrillic
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = G ...
-influenced alphabet.
The history of Rocaterrania parallels Kuhler's own life; when it began as an escapist response to his authoritarian parents, Rocaterrania was an absolute monarchy, but successive oppressive regimes were overthrown as he gained independence, settling into a democracy when he achieved a stable career as an illustrator.
Kuhler would often wear costumes he had designed and sewn himself as Rocaterranian fashion or uniforms.
Media
In 1997, his close friend and colleague Brett Ingram started creating a documentary film, ''Rocaterrania'', about Kuhler's
worldbuilding
Worldbuilding is the process of constructing a world, originally an imaginary one, sometimes associated with a fictional universe. Developing an imaginary setting with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, and ecology is a key task fo ...
project. It premiered on February 28, 2009 at the
Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose, California.
His work was exhibited at the
American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore,
as well as at the
Gregg Museum of Art & Design
The Gregg Museum of Art & Design is the art museum of North Carolina State University and is located near NC State's main campus in Raleigh, North Carolina. To current NC State chancellor Randy Woodson, the Gregg is "an opportunity to not only ce ...
in Raleigh and the
Outsider Art Fair
The Outsider Art Fair or OAF is an international exhibition that features outsider artists who work in a variety of mediums. It is a biannual fair occurring in New York City and Paris, the former taking place in January and the latter in October. P ...
in New York. After his death in June 2013, his work was exhibited at the Halle Saint Pierre in Paris that August.
In 2017, four years after Kuhler's death,
Blast Books
Blast Books is a New York-based book publisher whose catalog consists of non-fiction books which focus on cultural and historical subjects, often of an obscure or unusual nature. Many of their publications include archival illustrations and phot ...
published a biography, ''The Secret World of Renaldo Kuhler'', written by Ingram and including hundreds of Kuhler's illustrations.
Personal life
Kuhler was a lifelong eccentric, wearing a bowler hat and three-piece suit in college, and smoking
mullein from handmade pipes. He never married.
He described himself as "urban
Amish
The Amish (; pdc, Amisch; german: link=no, Amische), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsatian origins. They are closely related to Mennonite churches ...
", never drove a car or used a computer, and only grudgingly exchanged his rotary phone for a touchtone in his later years. He was a staunch liberal and environmentalist,
and his tastes and politics are evident in Rocaterrania, whose citizens prefer public transportation, environmental design, and opera (Kuhler played a handmade violin).
Notes
External links
Biographical website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuhler, Renaldo
1931 births
2013 deaths
People from Teaneck, New Jersey
Artists from New Jersey
Artists from New York (state)
Artists from Colorado
Artists from North Carolina
American illustrators
Scientific illustrators
Creators of writing systems
Constructed language creators
University of Colorado Boulder alumni
American people of German descent
American people of Belgian descent
Outsider artists
Visionary artists
20th-century American male artists
21st-century American male artists
People from Blauvelt, New York
People from Raleigh, North Carolina