Erich Nelson

• Born — 14 April 1897 • Birthplace — Berlin, German Empire • Died — 22 March 1980 • Place of death — Montreux, Switzerland • Occupation — Botanist, scientific illustrator

Erich Nelson was born in 1897 in Berlin to Hedwig Fajans and painter Ernst Nelson. As a child, he spent a great deal of time in the Berlin Zoological Garden. From 1915 to 1918 he served in the armed forces as a sanitarian. After the First World War, he completed his training as an artist in Munich, specializing in landscape paintings and illustrations of the natural world. On 1 April 1923, he married Gerda Kubierschky, daughter of the renowned artist Erich Kubierschky, who supported Nelson during his apprenticeship. In 1928, Nelson encountered orchids for the first time while traveling in Italy; these plants inspired all his future artistic and scientific work. Consequently, he dedicated himself to studying botany, under Professor K. von Göpel and Professor F. von Wettstein in Munich. In 1931, he published his first scientific book “Die Orchideen Deutschlands und angrenzender Gebiete” (The Orchids of Germany and Neighbouring Countries). In 1933, Erich Nelson and Gerda, both Jewish, left Germany. After a brief stay in South Tyrol, Italy, they found a home in Chernex-Sur-Montreux in Switzerland. His friend Professor Walter Rytz from Bern, Switzerland, supported Nelson and Gerda in their escape. After numerous journeys to the Mediterranean region, tirelessly drawing, and intensively studying orchids including at the Geobotanical Institute Rübel, in Zürich, he published four books between 1954 and 1976. First was “Gesetzmässigkeiten der Gestaltwandlung im Blütenbereich. Ihre Bedeutung für das Problem der Evolution” (Laws of Shape Change in the Area of Flowers, and Their Importance for the Problem of Evolution) in 1954, then in 1962 “Gestaltwandel und Artbildung erörtert am Beispiel der Orchideen Europas und der Mittelmeerländer, insbesondere der Gattung Ophrys” (Shape Change and Species Formation Discussed Using the Example of the Orchidaceae of Europe and the Mediterranean Countries, In Particular the Genus Ophrys. With a Monograph and Iconography of the Genus Ophrys), which was followed in 1968 by “Monographie und Ikonographie der Orchidaceen-Gattungen Serapias, Aceras, Loroglossum, Barlia” (Monograph and Iconography of the Orchidaceae Genera Serapias, Aceras, Loroglossum and Barlia), then in 1976 by “Monographie und Ikonographie der Orchidaceen-Gattung Dactylorhiza” (Monograph and Iconography of the Orchidaceae Genus Dactylorhiza). In 1967 the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, awarded him an honorary doctoral degree based on the work in the first two of his four books.

Erich Nelson was not only an artist but also a scientific illustrator. In many of his paintings he skilfully illustrated the beauty of nature in an impressionist style. But he was also an accomplished botanical artist and scientific illustrator who was able to document the European orchids in such detail that he captured the morphological variation in flower shape and colour between and within orchid species. Professor Heinrich Zoller compared the quality of Erich Nelsons oeuvre with the most famous plant illustrators of the 18th and 19th centuries: Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708–1770), Pierre-Joseph Redoute (1759–1840), and the brothers Franz Bauer (1758–1840), and Ferdinand Bauer (1760–1826).

• Die Orchideen Deutschlands und angrenzender Gebiete. 1931. • Gesetzmässigkeiten der Gestaltwandlung im Blütenbereich. Ihre Bedeutung für das Problem der Evolution. 1954. • Gestaltwandel und Artbildung erörtert am Beispiel der Orchideen Europas und der Mittelmeerländer, insbesondere der Gattung Ophrys. 1962. • Monographie und Ikonographie der Orchidaceen-Gattungen Serapias, Aceras, Loroglossum, Barlia. 1968. • Monographie und Ikonographie der Orchidaceen-Gattung Dactylorhiza. 1976. • Erich Nelson – Persönlichkeit und Lebenswerk aus heutiger wissenschaftlicher Sicht, mit Publikation seines Bildwerks der Gattung Orchis. 2001.