Regina Olson Hughes

Regina Olson Hughes (1895–1993) was an American scientific illustrator in Botanical Art. Born February 1, 1895, in Herman, Nebraska, she became fascinated with the world of plants and flowers. Her parents were Gilbert and Johanna (Sullivan) Olson. At age 10, she contracted scarlet fever and her hearing slowly diminished until she became fully deaf at age 14. In order for her to communicate with her peers, she relied on lip reading and written notes for business work. Hughes retained her speech skills and continued to speak fluently throughout her adulthood. She became proficient in American Sign Language when she enrolled in Gallaudet University.

She loved her rural home, rampant with weeds, plants and flowers. An interest in art also dominated her childhood. Her parents provided art tutoring. Plants and flowers were her favorite subjects. In 1923, Hughes married Frederick H. Hughes She said, “In 1918, when I graduated from Gallaudet, deaf people were looked down upon. We were treated like children.” But she never backed down from a challenge. At Gallaudet she proved her gift as a writer and poet, contributing many poems to the college's newspaper, Buff and Blue. After she graduated, she called on Nebraska senator Filbert Hichcock, founder of Omaha World Herald and friend of her father, and asked if he could help her find a political job. He told her, “nice girls don’t work. You go home and stay with your papa and meet a nice man and he'll take care of you.” She was notably unimpressed with this advice. She received her bachelor's in art in 1918 and her master's degree in 1920. Also at the departments of war and commerce where her most prestigious assignment was translating during the Conference on limitation of armament in Washington, after the armistice. There are no backgrounds to distract the scientists from the main subject of the work. Colors are held to a minimum to avoid interference with the subject. Similar parts of the plant might be shown in different levels of details. Distortotion is frequently seen in Hughes' works in order to show the important parts. Plants and flowers parts must show exact proportions in a corresponding scale.

Published work and art shows She was the first deaf artist to have a solo show at the Smithsonian; 40 meticulous watercolors of orchids were exhibited in the Rotunda Gallery of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in 1982: “Artist and Botanist-A Collaboration.” Her work has also been exhibited with the National League of American Pen Women, the Guild of Natural science illustrators, and the hunt institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie-Mellon University." The Agricultural Research Service Handbook 366, which contains 224 full-page plates of her work and has been published under the title "Common Weeds of the US," by Dover Press." The USDA Handbook N0. 498,"Economically Important Foreign Weeds, Potential Problems in the United States," contains over 6,000 of her drawings of seeds and plants. Her orchid paintings are permanently on public view at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Museum.

A partial list includes: Famous International Exhibition of Fine and Applied Arts by Deaf Artist 1934 [Roerich Museum, New York City] Journal of the Bromeliad Society; Grassland Seeds (1957) Stetches of the United States- Native, Naturalized, and cultivated (1960) Identification of crop and weed seeds (1963) National Arboretum 1968 Selected weeds of the United States(1970) Commons Weeds of the United States (1971) The agave family in Sonora (1972) Aquatic and wetland plants of the southwestern United States (1972) National Agricultural Library 1972 Economically important foreign weeds (1977) Selby Botanical Garden 1986 [Sarasota, Florida] Eastern Orchid Congress 1986 [Alexandria, Virginia] Gallaudet University 1986 [Washington DC] The Genera of the Eupatorieae (Asteraceae) (1987) Caryopsis morphology and classification in the triticeae (pooideae: poaceae) National Orchid Collection Washington Water Color Association Brookside Gardens [Maryland]

Honors Superior Service Award from the Department of Agriculture, 1962 Honorary Degree of Doctor of Human Letters From Gallaudet College, 1967 Woman of the Year by Gallaudet Sorority Phi Kappa Zeta (1979) “Artist of the Year” by the Chevy Chase Branch of the National League of American Pen Women (1980) New plant genus and species of Asteraceae named after her "Hughesia reginae," 1981 Amos Kendall Award (1981) The guild of Natural Science Illustrators member