Many of the museum's bird related dioramas showcase phenomenal examples of taxidermy
and mural painting produced by Museum artists.
When you see their work up close, you realize that these artists were a unique blend of
naturalist and artist.
In order to duplicate nature that well, you have to be totally immersed in it.
And understand bird anatomy, landscape painting, sculpting and the behavior of the birds.
The dioramas that they produced a re really remarkable assemblages of natural history.
One of the first artists to paint background murals at the Museum was Luis Agassiz Fuertes.
In the early 1900s, Fuertes developed a close, friendly relationship with ornithologist Frank
Chapman.
And Chapman preferred bringing Fuertes with him on expeditions because, as there was no
color photography, Fuertes could capture accurately the colors of the birds soft parts like eyes,
feet, and fleshy tissue, before it faded quickly after being collected.
Chapman referred to Fuertes as a bird portraitist, because he captured not just the essence of
the species, but captured the likeness of that exact individual bird that he was rendering
from life.
Frances Lee Jaques was a remarkable naturalist artist.
Jaques was thought to be the best bird artist of his time in painting birds in flight.
His ability to paint birds in flight is remarkable for the time in which he worked, which predates
sophisticated wildlife photography and film speeds required to really stop birds in mid-flight.
So it was just his extensive experience in the field that allowed him to paint that behavior.
The American Museum displays some of the finest bird taxidermy anywhere in the world.
Bird Taxidermy is quite a bit different from the mammal work that you see in the dioramas.
It usually requires a specialized individual who focuses on birds for their entire career.
This diorama, the bald eagle diorama, is a wonderful example of the craft of taxidermy.
I started work at the Museum in 1974, and I was assigned to apprentice with the then
staff taxidermist David Schwendeman, who was a master taxidermist at birds.
And the eagles in this exhibit are his work.
The young bald eagle is especially dramatic in that it is featured posed as it's coming
in for a landing.
David Schwendeman used a steel armature that is anchored into the mannequin of the bird
and that steel support follows behind one of those flight feathers, so you cannot see
it.
And that steel support is what holds the bird up in that position in flight, giving it the
sense that it's suspended in mid-air.
Taxidermy in the habitat groups, when the birds are posed in flight, gives us a wonderful
opportunity to study the principles of flight.
When you look at these exhibits and the specimens, you accept them for nature and accept them
for the reality that they seek to achieve, not realizing that they're illusion, and that
there are artists that create that illusion.