{"product_id":"the-secret-world-of-renaldo-kuhler-9780922233489","title":"The Secret World of Renaldo Kuhler","description":"\u003cp\u003eA 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 Kuhler catapults a thrilling new discovery into the pantheon of the most accomplished visionaryor outsiderartists. Like Henry Darger  Howard Finster  George Widener  and Adolf Wlfli  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 royal family and a succession of leaders resembling historical Russian figures  Women reminiscent of Marlene Dietrich and Janet Leigh play important roles as do bearded men of a seeming Hasidic Jewish heritage  men bearing curious physical similarities to American presidents  and neutantsindividuals neither male nor female.  Amid forests  mountains  lakes  and rivers  Kuhlers imaginary country is made up of provinces and cities filled with distinctive Rocaterranian architecture and well-planned railroad and metro systems. Its government is unique  and it has its own religion  Ojallism  and its own evolving language and alphabet. With an organized labor service  a prison system (modeled after a New Jersey state penitentiary)  a university system  a Rocaterranian Olympics  and an independent movie industry  Rocaterrania is a nation bustling with dozens of characters and their intrigues.Initially meant to be an escape  Kuhlers Rocaterrania became a secret lifelong obsession  an intricately coded  metaphorical account through Rocaterranias tumultuous history  which dovetailed with Kuhlers own struggles for independence and freedom.Renaldo was the son of the German-born industrial designer Otto Kuhler  renowned for his Art Decoera streamlined trains; his Belgian mother had little patience for her son  who was ostracized and bullied throughout his life for being different. The Kuhler family moved in 1948 from Rockland County  New York  to a remote cattle ranch in the Colorado Rockiesan unbearably isolated environment for the teenaged Renaldo. Retreating to his sketchbooks  journals  and watercolors to invent his imaginary nation of Rocaterrania  young Kuhler wrote  The ability to fantasize is the ability to survive.  The Secret World of Renaldo Kuhler is filled with more than 400 illustrations in pencil  ink  acrylic  oil  gouache  watercolor  colored pencils  and markers  demonstrating Kuhlers phenomenal draftsmanship and wide range of stylefrom delicately shaded graphite works to comic-book ink drawings. Complementing Kuhlers impressive artistry is his gift for analogical thinking  which flowered in his appropriation and reimagining of personalities  places  and events from world history to form a cohesive and fully imagined world. After decades of secrecy  Kuhler eventually first shared his work and the story of his imaginary country with filmmaker Brett Ingram  whom he met by chance in the mid-1990s. In 2009 Ingram released Rocaterrania  a feature-length documentary with prized footage of Kuhler at home and at work  and talking about his creation. With The Secret World of Renaldo Kuhler Ingram has written the complete story of Rocaterrania as relayed to him over time by Kuhler  resulting in a fascinating  highly entertaining first and major book about this rare  newly discovered  full-blown visionary outsider artist.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45666139340853,"sku":"ByrdShop_0922233489","price":46.53,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780922233489.jpg?v=1782420611","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-secret-world-of-renaldo-kuhler-9780922233489","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}