User:Clover342/Ida Rohann Hrubesky Pemberton

Ida Rohann Hrubesky Pemberton (born Ida Rohann Hrubesky; April 1890 - 23 January 1951) was an American botanical illustrator. She is known for her watercolor illustrations of over 60 medicinal plants.

Early years
Ida Rohann Hrubesky Pemberton was born in Nebraska in April of 1890. She was the youngest of the five Hrubesky children, with two older brothers and two older sisters. Ida's parents, Anna and Charles Hrubesky, were immigrants from Austria who came to the U.S. in 1856. The family lived in Geneva, Nebraska for most of Ida's childhood.

Pemberton attended several different universities during her life. She attended Doane College in Crete, Nebraska for two semesters, where she took a course on botany. After her year at Doane, Ida enrolled in the University of Nebraska, Lincoln in 1911. She took classes in studio and fine arts during her time there. However, after four semesters, she left the college due to a hearing impairment. In 1915, Pemberton returned to college and attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago until 1916. Records show that she did not graduate.

Marriage and family
Ida married William E. Pemberton in Geneva, Nebraska in 1918. In the mid 1920's, the Pembertons moved to Denver, Colorado and lived at several different addresses until Ida's death in 1951. During this time, Ida was teaching at school while William held a variety of jobs. In 1931, Ida gave birth to her only son at the age of 41. However, the boy died at age 4 after being hit by a car. The couple did not have any other children.

Art
In 1935, Pemberton began working on her unpublished collection entitled "Drug Plants," wherein she grew all the plants she illustrated from seed and bulb. She took seven years to create over 60 watercolor paintings that would complete the collection. Many plants Pemberton illustrated were perennials, so they likely took multiple years to fully study. She intended to publish these illustrations and even had an unfinished cover for her proposed book. The book would have been titled "Drug Plants: How They Grow, How They Heal."

After completing her collection, Pemberton searched to find a publisher for her illustrations. In 1950, she was given a one-woman exhibition in the New York Botanical Garden in 1950. However, she died shortly after on January 23rd, 1951 from a cerebral hemorrhage. She is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery in Wheat Ridge, Colorado.

Exhibitions
After Pemberton's death in 1951, her works were sold by her husband to the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History in Boulder in 1955. This same year, her collection was organized and displayed at the Smithsonian. Her collection was later sent on tour with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, and was shown at the Cranbook Institute of Science in Michigan (1957), Old Economy Village (1966), and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (1976).

From 2003 to 2004, Pemberton's collection was displayed at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation. This exhibition was well received, with critics highlighting Pemberton's dedication and depiction of her plants in both an artistic and scientific matter. The exhibition also expanded on Pemberton's theme of medicinal plants and provided historical uses of each plant illustrated. Along with this exhibition, Pembertons's illustrations were compiled into a full color catalogue entitled "The Healing Plants of Ida Hrubesky Pemberton." In this catalogue is a review by Victoria Matthews, a botanist and plant taxonomist, that discusses Pemberton's attention to detail and scientific accuracy in the portrayal of each specimen.