Born: 1 February 1895, United States
Died: 12 August 1993
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Regina Olson
Regina Olson Hughes turned her love of art and nature into a career as a botanical illustrator for decades at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Hughes lost her hearing when she was 13 due to illness, later attending Gallaudet University, graduating in 1918 and later marrying one of the school’s teachers, Frederick Hughes. Having become fluent in several languages, Hughes began working as a translator for the State Department before taking the illustrator role with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service. She used a microscope to see the smallest of details that she would then recreate with pen and paper. But like most scientific illustrations, her work wasn’t just beautiful – these drawings were important resources for farmers, such as her illustrations in Common Weeds of the United States that helped farmers identify harmful and invasive species.
Hughes produced thousands of illustrations for the USDA and her retirement in 1969 was short-lived, as she was soon recruited to the National Museum of Natural History’s Department of Botany. The watercolor paintings she produced of orchids, both beautiful and accurate in their precise details, for the museum were exhibited widely, including in the museum’s Rotunda Gallery, making her the first Deaf artist to have her work displayed in a Smithsonian museum. She lived to be 98, and continued working into her 90s.