Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

One often wonders, when a talented individual leaves us early, how much more they could have accomplished if they had been given a full lifespan. In the case of Rafael Lucas Rodríguez Caballero (1915–1981), whose life was cut short by Hodgkin lymphoma at the age of 66, one does not wonder what more he could have produced but only how much more of what he created could have been polished and published, so prodigious was the amount of scientific and artistic work he left behind.

During an oral history conducted in 1986 by Ann Lage, the eminent botanist Lincoln Constance (1909–2001), who was Rodríguez's major professor in graduate school, said of the talented man: "He never could quite make up his mind ... whether he should be an artist professionally and a botanist or a naturalist as a hobby, or the other way around" (Versatile Berkeley Botanist: Plant Taxonomy and University Governance, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, 1987).

To Rodríguez, choosing a label was never necessary. Looking at the Rafael Lucas Rodríguez Caballero papers, HI collection no. 376, donated to our Archives in 2019, anyone can certainly make that conclusion. The collection's highlights include papers from his student years, hundreds of original watercolors of orchids painted from life in the wilds of Costa Rica and Central America, classroom art from his time as a teacher, botanical jewelry designs and illustrations for his own articles. Any one item can convince the viewer of Rodríguez' skill as an artist and his botanical knowledge and acumen. To view the collection as a whole is to be in the presence of a genius.

The heart of this collection is certainly the volume of watercolors that Rodríguez created of the plants dearest to his own heart: over 1,000 paintings of Costa Rican (as well as Central and South American) orchids. These were painted en plein air over 24 years of exploration as well as from specimens. This was, perhaps, Rodríguez's magnum opus: a scientifically and artistically accurate record of hundreds of Costa Rican orchids, identified with references carefully listed on the back of each painted drawing. The pictures include several species that had not yet been described. The complete effort was finally published 37 years after Rodríguez's untimely death in Orquidéas en Acuarela: La Obra Inédita de Rafael Lucas Rodríguez Caballero (Cartago, Costa Rica, Editorial Tecnológica de Costa Rica, 2018).

While those paintings are the work of a man who is fully familiar with the study of orchids and their various forms, Rodríguez's scientific acumen is clearly visible much earlier in his varied career. In 1932, at 17, he graduated from the Liceo de Costa Rica. Afterward, he found employment there as a teacher and professor of natural sciences. He also apprenticed with the French goldsmith Louis Ferón, creating jewelry designs that were as scientifically accurate as they were beautiful. Carving designs and calligraphy, classroom charts and cartoons — it seems nothing limited his creations but time.

In 1942, while continuing to work part-time at the Liceo de Costa Rica, he entered the School of Sciences at the University of Costa Rica. Once he had finished his studies there, he received a scholarship and attended the University of California, Berkeley, which is where he met Lincoln Constance. The collection holds his notebooks from those studies. Although these remarkable notebooks are hand-lettered and illustrated, they could almost be mistaken for actual class workbooks and not Rodríguez's own notes. The lettering, written in pencil and calligraphy-clean, looks more like a typeset font than handwriting. The illustrations are artistic and professional in execution and accurate as always. A comment from his Mycology-Botany 101 professor in the front of his notebook simply reads "Perfectly Beautiful! R. E."

Along with his scientific and artistic ability, Rodríguez had another notable skill: he made his work accessible to academics and the public alike. His desire was that people could understand and benefit from his work, whether it was to help the general population understand the importance of conservation for the future, or it was to make people smile, laugh and, in so delighting in his art and cartoons, remember the science behind them. One example of this is an article, "The Fool, The Hooded Monk and the Swan Knight," he wrote in Ticorquídea (1973, 3(2)) that compares the form of several orchid genera to three medieval characters. The characters appear in an illustration done in the style of medieval illumination. The orchid genera are illustrated with botanically accurate linework, but the comparison is clear.

After seeing so many items full of artistic, botanical and instructive skill, it is a delightful surprise to come across the last example from our collection: several folders of pun-filled animal cartoons. Rodríguez's skills obviously inform his cartooning, but they do not restrict them, and his creativity is on full display in his wordplay here. In other folders we find bits and pieces of his life immortalized in his art. The coat of arms he designed for himself has a scout's-hat crest, which reflects his love of scouting and camping. The satirical, hand-drawn "publication," Bellea: the Journal to Devastate Botany (1952, vols. I and II), has a jocular familiarity with the rural lifestyle. Love shines through in the simple strokes of pastel of a sketch of his wife, Hortensia.

Finding Aid

A finding aid for this collection will be available soon online.

Other Resources

His work was featured in our 2nd International Exhibition of Botanical Art & Illustration (1968) and in The Art and Science of Rafael Lucas Rodríguez Caballero (2025).

For information about biographical citations for and portraits of the subject, see the Hunt Institute Archives Biographical Records database.

For thumbnails of artwork by Rodríguez, see the Catalogue of the Botanical Art Collection at the Hunt Institute database.