74 Nebraskaland • June 2026
BETTER THAN PHOTOGRAPHY
An English springer spaniel flushing a covey of quail,
mallards touching down on water, an underwater view of a
brown trout tussling with a fisherman above, a white-tailed
buck leaping over a fence and seemingly off the page … until
the 1960s, these up-close portraits of wildlife would have
been difficult or nearly impossible to capture in detail on film.
Camera technology had yet to keep up with the demands of
Outdoor Nebraska, and it would take a skilled artist to carry
the magazine through the next 20 years.
Having grown up on his family's farm near Kenesaw
northwest of Hastings, Claremont Gale "Bud" Pritchard
spent countless hours observing migrating birds on the
two marshes near his home. Wildlife captivated the young
Pritchard so intensely that he began sketching and painting
their likeness as a boy — and he didn't stop, not even for the
Second World War that shipped him to places such as India,
North Africa, Italy and the Philippines, where he sketched
local birdlife and scenery on the backs of military forms and
scraps of paper.
Once home, Pritchard caught his big break to become a
professional artist. By chance, he met pheasant and quail
biologist David Damon, who shared Pritchard's wildlife art
with the Nebraska Game, Forestation and Parks Commission
Director Paul T. Gilbert. As editor of Outdoor Nebraska,
Gilbert offered the artist a job, and by the Summer 1950 issue,
C.G. Pritchard appeared on the staff page as "Artist" — the
magazine's first full-time illustrator on payroll. For the next
two decades, Pritchard's work would go on to define the look
of the magazine, and in many ways, also the agency.
"Considering that high-speed photographs capturing
animals in motion were not widely available," wrote
longtime magazine editor Jon Farrar in his March 2006 story
"Bud Pritchard — Birder, Artist, Gentle Man," "Pritchard's
ability to render animals in motion was remarkable
testimony to his years of field study and sketching."
His art appeared on 43 magazine covers from 1950 through
1958 — every cover except two. "Notes on Nebraska's Fauna,"
a profile of a wildlife species, including lesser-known
nongame species, premiered in 1950 and ran through 1992,
alternating with "Notes on Nebraska's Flora" from 1971 to
1989 — Pritchard's artwork illustrated 193 of these features.
Wildlife captivated the
young Pritchard so
intensely that he began
sketching and painting
their likeness.
