National Museum of Natural History Unearthed

2011 Nature's Best Photography Windland Smith Rice International Awards Exhibit

The 2011 Nature's Best Photography Windland Smith Rice International Awards Exhibit opened at the Natural History Museum on March 30, 2012. We all know that photography is a strikingly compelling means of experiencing nature's majesty. This concept is the driving force behind the Nature's Best Photography competition, which operates under the mission to "celebrate the beauty and diversity of nature through the art of photography." The Museums's exhibit features the winners in each award category, as well as a collection of some of the highly honored photographs submitted to the competition this year.

Last month, we featured a post highlighting the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), a consortium digital library project (of which the Smithsonian is a founding member) providing free access to millions of pages of biodiversity literature. The online library features not only texts but also stunning illustrations of natural history from the past 500 years. Not surprisingly, the species featured in the award-winning photographs from the Nature's Best Exhibit can also be found in the historic books held in the BHL collection. To celebrate the exhibit, we're highlighting some of the featured photographs and sharing more about the species captured in each snapshot through illustrations and scientific descriptions found in the Biodiversity Heritage Library. You can also learn more about the species starring in the exhibit by visiting the Encyclopedia of Life.

Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus)

 

Winner: Wildlife. Polar Bear Cub, Barents Sea, Norway. Florian Schulz, NBP Awards 2011.

Constantine John Phipps, 2nd Baron Mulgrave, was the first to describe the polar bear, which he encountered during his 1773 expedition to the North Pole. He published the account in the 1774 publication A Voyage Towards the North Pole. Just four years later,  the first published illustration of the bear was released in Die Säugthiere in Abbildungen nach der Natur (below).

 

See the first description of the Polar Bear in BHL.
See the first published illustration of the Polar Bear in BHL.

Lion (Panthera leo)

 

Highly Honored: African Wildlife. African Lions, Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya. Federico Veronesi, NBP Awards 2011.

The lion was first described by Carl Linnaeus, a famous Swedish botanist and zoologist who developed the schema of identifying organisms by genus and species names ñ a system known as binomial nomenclature. He is therefore referred to as the Father of Modern Taxonomy. The tenth edition of his revolutionary work, Systema Naturae, represents the birth of zoological nomenclature (using binomial nomenclature for animals). The Lion was scientifically described for the first time in this work.

In 1909, Frank Finn's work Wild Beasts of the World was published, containing 100 reproduced illustrations of nature drawings by Louis Sargent, Cuthbert E. Swan, and Winifred Austin. One of the drawings contained within the first volume was "Lion and Lioness," by Louis Sargent (above).

See the first description of the lion in BHL.
See Louis Sargent's drawing in BHL.

Stag Beetle (Lucanus cervus)

Highly Honored: Small World. Stag Beetles, , Irún, Spain.  Jose Grandío, NBP Awards 2011.

The Stag Beetle was also first described by Carl Linnaeus in his tenth edition of Systema Naturae. The beetle's common name comes from the resemblance of the speciesí large mandibles to a deer's antlers. Furthermore, male deer use their antlers when battling over territory and mates. The Stag Beetle uses its mandibles for the same purposes.

In 1792, Edward Donovan, an Anglo-Irish writer, illustrator and amateur zoologist, published the first volume of his sixteen volume work entitled The Natural History of British Insects. The series, published over a period of twenty-one years, contained 576 plates, 568 of which were colored. His depiction of the Stag Beetle, wings extended in flight, is particularly memorable (above).

See the first description of the Stag Beetle in BHL.
See Donovan's illustration of the Stag Beetle in BHL.

We hope you get the opportunity to visit the Nature's Best Photography Exhibit at the Natural History Museum, running March 30, 2012-January 6, 2013. You can find out more about the animals in the photographs by searching on the species name in the Biodiversity Heritage Library and visiting the Encyclopedia of Life Collection. See more illustrations of these species from BHL in our Flickr collection.

 

Grace Costantino, Biodiversity Heritage Library Program Manager

 

Photo Credits:

• Nature's Best Polar Bear: Winner: Wildlife. Polar Bear Cub, Barents Sea, Norway. Florian Schulz, NBP Awards 2011..
• BHL Polar Bear: Schreber, Johann Christian Daniel. (1774-1846). Die Säugthiere in Abbildungen nach der Natur. (pl. 141).
• Nature's Best Lion: Highly Honored: African Wildlife. African Lions, Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya. Federico Veronesi, NBP Awards 2011.
• BHL Lion: Finn, Frank. (1909). The Wild Beasts of the World. (vol. 1, "Lion and Lioness").
• Nature's Best Stag Beetle: Highly Honored: Small World. Stag Beetles, Irún, Spain.  Jose Grandío, NBP Awards 2011.
• BHL Stag Beetle: Donovan, Edward. (1792). The Natural History of British Insects. (vol. 1, pl. 13).

 

 

The Beautiful Time: Photography by Sammy Baloji

The Beautiful Time opened on January 7^th, in the Focus Gallery of the permanent exhibit, African Voices.  It will be on view through 2012. This post is the first in series exploring the content and themes of The Beautiful Time.

I first saw the Baloji exhibition, which was organized by the Museum for African Art, when it opened in New York over a year ago.  I was immediately struck by the beauty and the visual power of the work and by the stories Baloji’s works tell of history and memory, home and landscape, and work and wealth in the Congo.  These are all important themes in Africa today and they are themes of so many of the stories from around the continent that are told in African Voices.  I was delighted that we were able to bring the exhibit here to NMNH.  

Baloji’s haunting photographs evoke the memory of the generations of Congolese whose labor built the vibrant copper mining industry—now lost—in the Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Throughout the first half of the twentieth century these mines were the second largest producers of copper in the world.   

Baloji’s photographic collages juxtapose black and white archival photographs of Congolese mine workers against the background of color photographs of panoramic landscapes of the contemporary ruins of factories and copper mines.  Although the early workers—who wear prison garb and in chains in some of these photographs—came to the mines as forced labor for the colonial state, they had within a few decades become highly skilled and valued mine workers.  Their labor created Congo’s modern industrial era and in his artwork, Baloji’s celebrates these mine workers’ essential role in Congo’s prosperity.  At the same time that they celebrate this history, these photographs convey the dramatic power of tragedy—the loss of the hard earned prosperity that has been squandered over the past decades through mismanagement and corruption.

Baloji is part of a generation of young Congolese who were born nearly two decades after the end of the colonial era in 1960.  His work aims to understand and reconnect for contemporary Congolese and for us two strikingly different time periods –the colonial and the post colonial era.  His photographs give voice to those forgotten African workers who built Congo’s mining industry in the early part of the 20^th century, and they cry out against the recent deindustrialization in the Congo and elsewhere in Africa.

Last year, I had the opportunity to meet Sammy and his colleague Patrick Mudekereza, in Brussels. Patrick is a writer and a long time artistic collaborator with Baloji in the Congo.  I asked Patrick to share his thoughts on these photographs and we have included his commentary in the exhibit.  Asked about the meaning of the phrase, The Beautiful Time, Patrick explained, “Sammy’s photographs are not nostalgic celebrations of The Beautiful Time, a phrase we often hear the older generation use when referring to the golden age of the colonial mining industry.  Rather, Sammy’s pictures speak to today and imply a failure by our leaders to provide our people with a means to create a more beautiful time than before.”

Mary Jo Arnoldi, Curator, African ethnology and arts, Department of Anthropology, NMNH

 

Image caption and credit: The archival photographs in this montage were probably taken in the early twentieth century. Porters, carrying loadsof firewood, are dressed in prioson uniforms and are attached to one another by rope. Baloji has placed the prisoners along the tracks of a now useless railway, signaling a loss of potential. Untitled, Sammy Baloji, 2006, Digital C print

A Scientist and a Tinkerer – A Story in a Frame

Developing an exhibition is the process of winnowing content down to the essentials – deciding what absolutely cannot be left on the cutting room floor. Space is limited, so the exhibit team is constantly sifting through stories, asking which photographs and objects are most essential. All of the content seems important at first blush. In a photographic exhibit, each photograph must tell a story. Deciding what stays and what goes can be challenging. I was thinking about this recently as I began archiving the 100^th Anniversary exhibition photographs. One photograph that survived the refining process stood out as capturing many facets of the Museum’s story in a single frame.

When you go to work for a place like the National Museum of Natural History, you expect to work with scientists – curators specifically. I think most people would be surprised to learn that curators have long comprised a very small segment of the people doing science at the Museum. For decades many of our scientific staff were not even scientists by training, but rather started out as “tinkerers” who became scientists by trade through the experiences available to them at the Museum. I also realized that many different types of “science” happen here every day – from molecular DNA barcoding to the conservation and preservation of mammal specimens and pottery. In museums, science also intersects art when we exhibit our collections and research. Museum staff members from varied backgrounds and professions work quietly behind the scenes and out of the spotlight, forging new areas of expertise, new professions, and expanding the boundaries of what we call science.

This photograph of Museum taxidermists Julian S. Warmbath, Charles R. Aschemeier, Watson M. Perrygo, and William L. Brown mounting a hippopotamus for exhibition in the 1930s captures the story of nontraditional science at the Museum and publicly recognizes many of the nontraditional scientists and science at the Museum (Image from Smithsonian Institution Archives). In many ways, the National Museum of Natural History is the home of the taxidermist, and most of the premiere taxidermists in the United States worked at or for the Museum at one time or another. Most of these scientific professionals were not scientists by training. Often they started out like Perrygo – a “tinkerer” who looked closely at the world around him, asked questions, participated in field expeditions, and explored the natural world whenever possible. In this photograph, I see four men who did not have PhDs in science but cared for scientific specimens daily and revolutionized a profession along the way. They did this behind the scenes in the work rooms, labs, and basements, wearing smocks and using the tools of their trade – many of which they invented or were even hazardous to their health – and are only recognized decades later through the inclusion of this photograph in the exhibition.

Professionals like these have been defining and redefining what it means to be a scientist for over one hundred years. Each man is examining a different part of the hippo specimen as they measure and prep it for display. The daily care and display of museum collections requires intense attention to the smallest details. They’ve mounted the hippo with the mouth open dramatically. Most of museum visitors will never have the opportunity to see a hippopotamus, much less look into its outstretched mouth. Taxidermists balance preservation of the specimen with the need for displays that will intrigue and incite visitors’ imaginations and their interest in science. Working in a place that is home to such diverse and dedicated scientific professionals is a unique experience and makes coming to work every day a pleasure.

Seeing this photograph again also reminded me that the Museum’s most recent expert in taxidermy and bronze sculptor in his spare time, Paul Rhymer, retired this spring leaving the Office of Exhibits without a resident taxidermist. Before he left the Museum, Paul told me that he did an assessment and treatment on this hippopotamus specimen when it was put back on display in the 1990s. Because of the care and scientific expertise employed in the conservation and treatment by taxidermists Warmbath, Aschemeier, Perrygo, and Brown in the 1930s, Paul said that the hippo was the best preserved specimen he had ever seen and required little treatment despite being almost one hundred years old. You can still see this hippo on display today in the Museum’s Behring Family Hall of Mammals.

Learn more about the different scientific careers at the Museum on the 100th Anniversary web site.

Siobhan Starrs, Exhibit Developer, Office of Exhibits

Image caption and credit: Taxidermists Julian S. Warmbath, Charles R. Aschemeier, Watson M. Perrygo, and William L. Brown mounting a hippopotamus for exhibition in the 1930s. Image from Smithsonian Institution Archives

A Photographer's Passion - An Interview with the Late Chip Clark

Recently, we lost a longtime colleague and friend - photographer Roy 'Chip' Clark.  This interview is one of his last and showcases the passion for his job that made Chip a valued member of our community. Read about his nearly 40-year career at NMNH.