AMNH Elephant Taxidermy 1927 Movie

[Ken Edwards]

Check out this silent film recently found in the archives of the American Museum of Natural History: "Modern Taxidermy ... Mounting Indian Elephants for the American Museum of Natural History, New York City".

Modern Taxidermy: Mounting the Indian Elephant (shown here in abridged form) is a 1927 silent film that documents Carl Akeley's taxidermy process from the raw hide — fresh from the Faunthorpe-Vernay collection expedition — to finished display.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/01/31/133377909/taxidermy

Maybe Stephen, JJ or John can help to identify some of the taxidermists featured in this film.

[PA]

The mustached person is Louis Jonas. John placed a number of photos of the mounting of these elephants in the archives in 2009 but the photos are not there at present. Post http://www.taxidermy.net/forum/index.php/topic,128984.0.html


The publication the pictures came from was:

Jonas, L.  1930.  The mounting of an elephant group.  Proceedings of the American Association of Museums, New Series, no. 11, Washington, DC.  30 pp.

mentioned in this past posting http://www.taxidermy.net/forum/index.php/topic,220184.0.html

[PatrickM]

Just came across this myself and was about to post it but it looks like you beat me to it! Fascinating film.

[John Bellucci]

The young Black Man at the skin relaxation bath, and then on the shaving beam thinning that hide, is none other than the Maestro ... Mr. Sinclair Clark!  Even in this grainy black and white film, I can recognize him.  Oh, man!  What a treasure!  What's really cool is watching the stills I've posted of this process "come to life" on film!  Thank you for posting it Ken!  This is significant, to say the least!

John.

[museum man]

the film is a testiment to why his work done 80 years ago still blows away anything today....overall time spent mounting from beginning to finished product ment nothing.....the end result was the only concern...perfection was the only goal....everyone today should strive to produce such works of art...not this drive thru taxidermy that has etched its way into the art...forget the get it in and get it out tomorrow thought process so many have now...in 50 or more years, a taxidermist in the future will be looking at your work maybe....have him think how gifted you must have been, and not have him appaled by your work...

[coonhollow]

awesome thanks Ken!

[alan webfoot]

what a blast to go spelunking inside an Asian elephant ,,thanks for posting all these it's become one of my favorite ''stopping '' places on the taxi net