The Elemental Prairie: Sixty Tallgrass Plants

"Elemental" is the perfect word to describe George Olson's watercolor drawings of the plants of the tallgrass prairie. Delicately precise yet filled with vigor and color, they present the prairie in its individual elements and—taken as a group that celebrates the hues and textures of tallgrass wildflowers and grasses—in its seasonal abundance. In The Elemental Prairie, the combination of George Olson's luminous drawings and John Madson's eloquent essay "The Running Country" encourages us to look at the prairie world with newly appreciative eyes. For some years Olson has focused almost exclusively on the grasses and wildflowers of the North American prairie, meticulously reproducing their elemental structures and colors while—proving once again that art can both imitate and enhance nature—emphasizing their magical loveliness. By painting certain species in their winter and summer "plumages," he reveals the plants' stark wintry framework as well as their more glorious warm-weather beauty. The Elemental Prairie presents sixty glowing images of tallgrass plants, from the familiar purple coneflower and black-eyed susan to the less-often-seen rattlesnake master and compass plant. Together Olson and Madson, two dedicated prairie restorationists, one using images and the other using words, create a living prairie in all its brilliance.

George Olson recently retired from the faculty of the College of Wooster in Ohio, where he taught art from 1963 to 2000. His prairie plant studies have been shown widely in the U.S. and England, includ-ing more than thirty one-person exhibitions at such venues as the British Museum (Natural History), the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Chicago Botanic Garden, and the Royal Horticultural Society. John Madson (1923-1995) is considered the father of the modern prairie restoration movement; his books include Where the Sky Began (Iowa reprint 2004), Up on the River, Stories from Under the Sky, and Tallgrass Prairie.