(bison growls) (laid-back country music)
- They're North America's largest land mammals,
standing six feet tall, weighing nearly a ton.
But what's the relationship between these iconic creatures,
the Smithsonian Institution, and American art?
Let's dig in.
Have you ever thought about the connection
between art and...
(multiple popping sounds)
Well then, buckle up.
Join me and your personal team of Smithsonian experts
as we Re:Frame American art.
This sculpture, "Buffalo (model for Q Street Bridge)",
was created in 1912 by artist Alexander Phimister Proctor.
I wonder where the Q Street Bridge is?
(up-tempo, funky music)
Oh, right here.
The Q Street Bridge or, as it's more properly known,
the Dumbarton Bridge, connects the Georgetown neighborhood
of Washington, DC to Dupont Circle.
It was completed in 1915.
The statues on the bridge were sculpted
by the same artist, A. Phimister Proctor.
All these sculptures are making me
want to see a real live buffalo.
Tony Barthel is a curator at the National Zoo.
So, does the National Zoo have buffalo?
- No, the National Zoo has American bison.
And a lot of people call them buffalo; that's incorrect.
They're actually very different species.
American bison and the buffalo
are both in the same family of animals.
They include cattle, bison, buffalo, antelope.
But within that family, bison and buffalo really
aren't that closely related.
- Then tell me, who are these lovely ladies?
- This is Wilma and Zora, two female bison.
They're now adults at about five years old.
In the winter, they're real furry
and have a thick, thick coat.
In the summer, they shed out a lot of that coat
until it comes off in carpets of fur,
and that's what you see now.
- They're putting on their summer clothes now.
- Yeah, they're taking off their sweaters.
- How long has the zoo had bison?
- Back in the late 1800s, the first animals
that were part of this entity that became the National Zoo
were bison living on the Mall at the time.
- On the National Mall? - Yeah, yeah,
in the National Mall.
They were down there, little herd of bison.
William Temple Hornaday
is really the reason we have bison here.
He was a taxidermist for the Smithsonian at the time,
went on an expedition out West to collect some bison
for exhibition in the museum, and
on that trip was shocked to discover how few there were.
He had in his mind vast herds of bison,
and what he found was very few.
And so that got him thinking about
how important it was to conserve this species,
and he came back and started lobbying Congress
to establish a National Zoo to help protect animals
and engage the public in their stories.
And that ultimately did lead to the founding
of the National Zoo in 1889.
- That's amazing!
So bison were kind of the start of the zoo.
- They were, absolutely.
- I wonder why Proctor chose to sculpt a buffalo,
(tape rewind sound effect)
I mean bison, for the bridge?
Why this particular animal?
I bet Karen Lemmey, SAAM's curator of sculpture,
will have some insight.
So Karen, tell me about Alexander Phimister Proctor.
- So Proctor was a man of the West.
When he was about 10, 11 years old,
his family moved to Denver.
So he spends the rest of his childhood growing up there,
hunting big game, and just loving the West
and all its nature.
His big break comes after studying in New York.
He gets hired or commissioned to sculpt 35 animals
that are emblematic of what the country sees.
- Like a bison?
- Like a bison. - Okay.
- And so these big North American mammals,
many of which he grew up hunting,
he's now depicting in plaster materials
for the World's Columbia Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
- So why a bison?
- There are a lot of reasons why a bison.
It's a quintessential American icon at this point.
Think of the Buffalo nickel.
(ding)
The animal itself was iconic as a symbol of the West,
as a symbol of the fading of the myth of the West,
the demise of the West,
and Proctor sort of resurrects this animal
in his work.
They were a representation of the West,
but they were also just seen as a national symbol.
- Okay.
So for 19th century artists like A.P. Proctor,
the bison was more than an animal.
It was a symbol of an idealized American West.
(upbeat country music)
And who knew that these captivating creatures
were also integral to the founding of the National Zoo?
Today, thanks to conservation efforts around the country
and here at the Smithsonian, the bison are still alive
and well in all their fuzzy majesty.
(up-tempo, funky music)
Bye, art nerds.
(TV static) (laughs)