AMNH Restoration - Bison!

[gdante]

For the past several years I have been really fortunate to have worked on some amazing projects, but this one…..well, lets just say I have to slap myself a few times a day to be sure I’m not dreaming.
The great habitat dioramas at New York’s American Museum of Natural History are in fact the Sistine Chapel to us taxidermist.  To me, they are this and much more, they define who I am and have fueled the passion for what I do since I was a child.
My latest project has me working on the restoration and renovation to its Hall of North American Mammals. 
Aside from the normal cleaning and repairs which go along with a renovation such as this, some very interesting things have been happening.  All of the lighting in each diorama was being updated as the UV from the original lights had faded most of the mounts beyond an acceptable level.  Plans were discussed to attempt re-coloring the mounts but several problems needed to be worked out. 
First, because the museum holds these dioramas as historical artifacts and great works of fine art (thank god!), nothing could be performed which might jeopardize them in any way.  The method for re-coloring must be safe, The work must be done in place, the specimens cannot be washed, it must look natural, resist fading, and preferably be reversible!  This is where my intensive education began.  Months were spent working with AMNH conservator Elizabeth Nunan on a material and process which would satisfy all of these requirements. Long story short, Ms. Nunan has made it possible to revolutionize the way faded taxidermy is restored.  I am honored to have been working with her to develop an application method and color formulations.
One of the largest groups which needed re-coloring was the iconic Bison and Pronghorn diorama. These mounts are beyond exceptional! I was humbled by Robert Rockwell’s work before, but now being able to see them up close, was moving to say the least.
There is so much happening here right now it’s kind of overwhelming just thinking about it. I’ll try to share as much as I can throughout the project, so for now, we’ll start with some photos of the Bison diorama.













You can really see how much the mounts have faded compared to the bison in the background painting.




Checking the small color swatches I made up against natural Bison hide and the faded mounts. Narrowed it down to about 8 colors!




After conservation cleaned half of the Pronghorn, you can really see the difference!


Some of the detail in the background painting by James Perry Wilson.


Notice the elongated bison as described in Steve Quinn's book....eliminating distortion from the curve.


Richard Weber installing the "tenting" to protect the painting from my overspray.  Richard also fabricated all the decking so we can access these areas.


Ready for re-coloring.

More to come!
George

[Nyati]

Looking forward to your updates.

[Tim McLagan]

Wow , what an undertaking...  Thanks for sharing !!

[michael p.]

Excited to see the progress

[rbear]

Cool, you are very fortunate.
Ralph

[PA]

Nice pictures George. I heard you met Pat Morris when he stopped by the AMNH on the way to the World Show a little over a month ago. He sort of snuck behind the scenes and saw some of the work underway.

What did Ms. Nunan use to clean the Pronghorn - ethanol?

I also wonder if she intends on publishing, or you two and others jointly publishing the methods employed in an upcoming Collection Forum. Too bad the AMNH doesn't still have Curator (the journal) all to itself, it was a great publication for many years but seems to have gone further away from Natural History articles.

[Wayne R]

Amazing as always George, thanks for posting this. Looking forward to seeing how this will progress, and how it was done.

[George Roof]

George Dante posted some recent pictures of his refurbishing in the AMNH.  George is one of the most gifted artists I've even had the pleasure of meeting and the AMNH have no idea how fortunate they are to have acquired his services.  George is a genuinely nice man and he wouldn't think of saying what I'm about to say.

Too often we take our icons and place them on an untouchable pedistal. Yet the proof still exists in many museums that have fallen in disrepair due to apathy for taxidermy work and lack of funding. Fortunately for posterity, George is going to salvage some of that.  But I just want you to see what I've said all along that SOMETIMES the icon's works aren't that spectacular.  The first picture is of an elk mounted by Robert Rockwell, an apprentice and student of Carl Akeley (Akeley would have likely hurt Rockwell if he'd lived to see this mount.)  I think about the grief given Dennis Harris about his mount last year and just have to laugh to think this piece has been on public display for decades.

The next is one of the wolves mounted by George Adams.  Look REAL close at the inside of the mouth.  Aging and flaking paint had nothing to do with two hide nails protruding inside the mouth.

I can't imagine the effort it will eventually take George Dante to get those animals looking lifelike in their original glory. It's a shame the Smithsonian had no more forethought than they did in dismissing John Mathews who was attempting the same upgrades.  At least we know the AMNH will eventually have work that we can all appreciate.

[museum man]

true story george....flaws can be found even the mona lisa, but its great to restore and preserve not only the old famous paintings but OUR  artwork also

[gdante]

Hi Steve,

The pronghorn were cleaned with ethanol, correct.  Yes, this will be published, as of where has yet to determined as we are right in the middle of things now and there is so much information.

George

[gdante]

George, in response to your post, first, thank you for the kind words, I really appreciate that.  Second, I was kind of saving what you brought up for another post, as it is a whole separate issue we can discuss in depth.  Museum taxidermy…well, let’s say good museum taxidermy and more specifically dioramas and their taxidermy. These are NO WHERE near the taxidermy we are used to seeing. Is it better or worse???, well both!
We come from a mindset where we spend four days detailing the septum of an animal and 30 seconds designing the overall piece! This taxidermy was done with the same mindset as a fine art painting.  They were creating an overall piece; background painting, foreground, and taxidermy to be viewed from the front, several feet away, behind glass; not to hang on someone’s wall or sit in someone’s living room.
When you REALLY look at what they did and how they went about it….it was nothing short of genius. See, I too at one time looked at it as you did, and it wasn’t until I saw what was happening behind the scenes and why they did what they did, it all made sense to me. They did not do any unnecessary work where it would not be seen.  When you think about it…why would they?  I love it!  They did however, make sure the overall anatomy was great, the body postures and attitudes were natural, compositionally pleasing to the eye, and most of all conveyed the message they were trying to get across. Now, to make this all work in a diorama….they nailed it!  I don’t believe people have a clue on what things need to be considered and thought out when creating these dioramas.  Let’s look at these photos John Janelli took when he visited with me as a perfect example.  In the mouth of that elk, the first thing I noticed when I climbed up there was there’s no Bottom jaw and the throat is very shallow!! How dare they put this on display??!!!  Now as you look closer at the photo as I did in the mouth you’ll notice a round mirror which is placed in the bottom of the mouth.  Because this animal is so close to the glass, the angle of its head and the angle of the lights, there would be unnatural shadows “blacking out” the mouth interior.  The mirror reflects the light up onto the upper pallet illuminating it more softly as it would be in nature and giving the viewer a bit more.  After realizing this I felt ashamed to have criticized the lack of bottom teeth, tongue, and throat detail that no one would ever, ever, ever, see! Why didn’t I think of that?
The wolf you have there is one of the two running wolves in the night scene which is so dark, very little is visible.  To see inside the moth you literally need to sit on the floor with a flashlight.  The diorama however has amazing visual impact!  Mood is spectacular!  And don’t even get me going about what they did with the shadows in the snow!

Here’s a few more George, which before I knew better, I sneered at as well, but then stopped, thought about what I was seeing, and gained an even greater respect for these men.
I always admired this little pronghorn with its posture, unique pose and subtle composition.  When I got behind it I saw why it was posed like this!







Not even an attempt was made to repair this! ….But why would you?  You cannot see even a trace of this from the other side.  Not to mention this was not a time when they could have just put a post up on Taxi Net for another pronghorn skin. I admire this.

Look carefully at the background painting here.  Notice it’s not finished?  Can’t see it, no matter how hard you look…a bison blocks it.



There are so many of these little things in these dioramas they can fill an article, and to me they are the things which make me appreciate these works even more.

Stay tuned, more to come!
George

[George Roof]

This is going to be a classic, George. I can only imagine how you must feel working in this place. In another life, I did some gunsmithing on primitive firearms. One day I got an original Lancaster rifle (called a Kentucky rifle because thats where the pioneers were headed).  When I took it apart I had the strangest feeling of being in some time warp where I and the gun maker were sharing time and space.  I imagine you have those feelings with those great dioramas and those magnificent specimen who were once alive on those plains.  Seeing you standing by the buffalo reminded me of that.  Best wishes. I know they couldn't possibly be in better hands.

[PA]

I second what George Roof said (in his other post which should have been placed here) that George Dante is a very talented artist. I was quite impressed with the quality of the dodo piece and the Galapagos iguana that he posted in the past on this forum. Mr. Dante even now is getting further information how these early practitioners were in many ways far and above the many of people we have today. You have to have a great understanding of taxidermy as it was done 100 years ago and the fact that EVERY SINGLE STEP was much different than today.

Think of all the advanced tools and equipment we have today and take for granted that taxidermists of 100 years ago hadn't even thought of. For large mammals just begin with fleshing machines. I remember reading where in preparation for mounting an elk, a skilled knife worker would spend upwards of 5 full days just paring down the hide - that is probably five ten hour days painstakingly slicing small pieces of hide to get a uniform thin surface.

Then the tanning agents of 100 years ago - great advances were made since the old days. The Santens brothers, who actually trained Robert Rockwell (before he came along to have Akeley as an apprentice) understood tanning and thinning of the hide. That helped solidify the steps in the "Akeley" method. The steps generally attributed to Carl Akeley began with ALL the museum taxidermists at the time. James Clark helped some aspects, Leon Pray helped, Robert Rockwell, and all the European taxidermists who brought information over and taught it to the eager Americans youngsters who had dreams in their head about creating natural history exhibits and ended up building museum dioramas that were the envy of the world.

Mr. Dante is getting to appreciate the details these early practitioners went through. They were in no hurry in creating these exhibits even though the administration was undoubtedly putting pressure on creating exhibits fast. Quality cannot be rushed and each of the large dioramas take a large team of people - perhaps 30 in all - most of a year to pull off, not even counting the planning involved. Just the plants in some dioramas can take a team of 5 plant fabricators most of a year. Every step in planned and executed to the best of the ability the artist can render.

No attempt was made at trying to save the Dioramas at the NMNH much to the dismay of John Matthews and others. With the advent of quality moving pictures by the 1930's, the Museum Diorama was already on its' way out of favor. Albert Parr, an educator at the AMNH noted that in the 1950's or so. The general public is more enthralled today in seeing a 3-D adventure film than staring at a static diorama in a big museum.

It is a rare museum administrator today who actually thinks of these works as pieces of art. That is why books like Steve Quinn made about the works at the AMNH is so important. A smaller book highlighted the Field Museum works, and I am still working on one for here, but using every opportunity that presents itself to try and save what exists today. I have been in on dismantling 5 dioramas here and hopefully no more will bite the dust but preparators or collection managers have little influence when the chips are down.

100 years ago they didn't have freezers to place specimens in - at least they didn't understand how it worked. No hair driers or vacuum cleaners on reverse - try washing a greasy bird and fluffing it back up with plaster or fine wood chips, and no wire wheel. Formaldehyde, which can stop decomposition in its tracks, wasn't used routinely until perhaps the 1920's - Phenol was sometimes used but caused a whole new cadre of problems. Heck even shipping. When Akeley was using dozens of natives to pare down an Elephant hide in a 36 hour marathon of fleshing, that hide had to be watched, dried, folded, dried further, boxed, carried by oxen to a port, shipped by sea and take weeks to get to the museum destination. Today, a hunter can shoot a cape buffalo, flesh it out quickly, cool it, use a fleshing machine, and if the governments didn't have so many regulations, it could be on the same airplane ride back to the state 3 days after it was shot.

A handful of years ago a small team of people went up and obtained a buffalo for the Indian Hall here from a captive herd - an old bull near its’ end in good shape. After the Sioux ceremony (they brought in a shaman to bless the animal), it was put in a cattle truck and drove to a small slaughterhouse, put down and we skinned it up. Two people with machinery can lift a buffalo easily, and make quick work of it. A short day of fleshing and salting and the taxidermist here conscripted a worker to simply drive it to Carolina Fur Dressing. Send off for a foam form and it’s all done.

How different was that than when William T. Hornaday was running around the west trying to find a few Buffalo to collect for the famous Diorama at the Smithsonian in the 1880’s. Riding on horseback, chasing them down, shooting them, skinning them with the flies and heat and having difficulties even rolling over the animal to get the parts skinned up and away from dirt. Shipping by wagon then potentially train, and then using his antiquated armature system for mounting it - as pictured in the J. W. Elwood books. It is all awe inspiring.

It is a whole different world today and I am glad some people appreciate the past. Mr. Dante, I hope you continue to keep us posted on the various dioramas you work on.

[George Roof]

Thanx Stephen. Time for a reality check with that sobering post.  Even us old guys forget the "good old days" sometimes weren't.

[Ken Edwards]

A BIG thank you to George Dante and Stephen for this fascinating topic and the amazing behind-the scenes photos that we would never have seen otherwise. This is my favorite post of the year!

Due to the excellent explanation by George Dante, I have merged George Roof's original post into this topic for continuity. Once this post is complete, I will move it to the "Taxidermy History" category. I look forward to much more as Mr. Dante continues with his restoration. Thank you for this outstanding contribution to the Forum!