Fred F. Scherer (1915-2013)
Starting in the late 1880s, many natural history museums established a practice of showcasing animals in dioramas that would allow visitors to see the specimens in an exact location rather than a generic scene. Meet a master who painted those dioramas from plein air sketches.
To achieve that level of naturalism and believability, plein air painters traveled to locations chosen by scientists, where they created plein air paintings that could be used as guides for developing the large background paintings. From 1934 to 1972, Fred F. Scherer painted or collaborated in painting dozens of those dioramas for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. After he retired to Vermont, Scherer continued to paint landscape outdoors.
