Hi all,
Sorry I have not been on here in a while to update you but as you can imagine, things have been busy. So, the first half of this project is finally complete with all of the dioramas in the south zone of the American Museum of Natural History's North American Mammal Hall restored. I will try to post those photos as soon as I have more time. For now, I thought I'd update you from my last post with photos of the Bison re-coloring.
I want to thank our good friend John Bellucci for sending me an amazing set of reference photos...the images were incredible! Thanks John!
The first images I'll show you here was a mystery that was solved with the help of another friend. We noticed this band of bee's wax on top of the eye of the bison bull, put there in a very distinct manner. It had no color as you can see and we wondered of it's purpose. One day, John Janelli came to visit with a post card of the Bison Diorama from the 1960's. It was in color and depicted the bison before their severe fading. As I looked closer, I could see in the photo, this brilliant white band across the top of the bull's eye. A rotation!! Rockwell, added the bee's wax to create the sclera band...genius! As you can see, I re-painted the white which was faded and lost to bring back this illusion.
Once I had the colors finalized and approved, I sprayed some test areas on the back of the bull to see if the dyes would react with the older hair, any materials which might be on the hide, etc.
Once this was approved, re-coloring began and as you can see with this mother and calf, the transformation was dramatic. the cow has some color on it now and the calf is the original faded color. Notice the plastic window open so I could see the background painting. One of the most important goals of this was to make sure the taxidermy specimens matched the bison in the painting. Without this the illusion was destroyed.
The finished cow, calf, and the painting now revealed.
Notice the difference when color was applied to the bison in front compared to the faded bull in the back.
The back bull now colored.
The Bull, before and after.
Before
After
The Pronghorn group was also re-colored.
Before
After
Before
After
More to come...enjoy!
George Dante
Author
