BOREAL TWILIGHT-GREAT GREY OWL

MEET THE ARTIST

Jim Rataczak

A small strip of woods behind his boyhood home in Minnesota provided the surroundings in which Jim Rataczak (pronounced “RAT-a-check”) began his life as a naturalist and artist. As birds became an increasingly common subject in his artwork, Jim learned of the work of several Minnesota wildlife painters, especially that of Ron Van Gilder, Gary Moss, and David A. Maass, and marveled at the incredible animal diorama backgrounds Francis L. Jaques had painted at the Bell Museum of Natural History in Minneapolis.