(NEW YORK CITY) Album of diorama preparation photos for the American Museum of Natural History and elsewhere. 61 photographs, various sizes but mostly around 5 x 7 inches, plus 2 clippings and 5 natural history prints, mostly inserted into corners on scrapbook leaves. Oblong 4to, 10 x 13 inches, original string-bound boards, minor wear; minimal wear to contents. Various places, circa 1928-1936 Many New Yorkers have fond memories of childhood visits to the American Museum of Natural History, and particularly the timeless lifelike dioramas in the Hall of African Mammals, which were created in the 1930s. Many or most of the photographs in this volume show the development of these dioramas, from modeling through completion. Several photographs show exhibit preparators at work on the dioramas.
At least 6 photos have captions on verso which place them at the American Museum of Natural History--and the compiler as one of the artists. For example, the okapi exhibit is captioned "Did some of the modelling and all the accessory work and background (this is a sketch model). American Museum of Natural History between 1928-31. Okapi (figures about 5 in high)." One photograph is captioned "assistant to Robert Rockwell on five of these buffalo," and another reads "Assistant to Louis Jonas on water hole group and Asiatic elephants." Robert Rockwell and Louis Paul Jonas were both longtime Museum of Natural History exhibit makers, and are both members of the Taxidermy Hall of Fame. Many of the photos, including those identified as Natural History Museum images, are stamped by photographer Meredith D. Burch (1905-1932), a Museum of Natural History staffer who was involved in exhibit preparation and taxidermy.
At least a few photographs are from other museum projects, or were included as reference material. At the beginning of the volume are 4 mostly industrial dioramas for a Texas Works Projects Administration project from 1936, one of them showing the Hoover Dam. One mine diorama is inscribed "Did the mules and most of mine interior, Dept. of Interior, Texas Centennial." Later in the volume, one naval diorama scene is stamped on front and back by C.R. Porteus of the Public Museum in Milwaukee, WI. Two 1936 newspaper clippings describe other diorama projects in Washington.