I know I wrote my next Exhibition Hopping post would be about my first week that I hadn’t written about but still haven’t written about it and since I went to the museum this past Friday, I’m due to write about that one. The first week will still be written.
I’ve never been to the American Museum of Natural History, yet I’ve lived in New York my whole life. I’ve wanted to go though but just never been proactive about a trip. So, when a friend of mine, a New Yorker now living in Florida came up to visit for the weekend wanted to go, I hopped on the chance. I came away realizing that more than one trip is needed to see everything here.
This is what I saw at the entrance:
I didn’t take a photo from the statue’s other side but the statue is Theodore Roosevelt on a horse with a Native American standing alongside them. It’s bigger in person and since its such and is so detailed, more of my attention was on it than the actual museum I stood before.
Plus while we were waiting on line for the tickets, I kept seeing some Theodore Roosevelt quotes on the walls and didn’t know why he was so prominent at this museum. The friend said apparently he was a big nature enthusiast so that’s why. I don’t know. Maybe.
Murals that aligned the walls of this entrance were so stunning and inspiring and I couldn’t believe there were so old and held up so well. They were painted by William Andrew Mackay in the 1930s and I didn’t take pictures of as the Ipad Mini camera isn’t all that clear but Christopher Winnegar on Flickr has graciously posted some pictures that I’m sharing below:
Photo Credit: Christopher Winnegar
Photo Credit: Christopher Winnegar
So, I was entertained just waiting on line! I loved it. I kept thinking, if museums wanted an artist who was detailed like that I could definitely do that for them!
My expectation for the museum was that I’d see a lot of mannequins of famous old explorers or people throughout history, on wildlife, and the “human evolution stages mannequins”. So when I saw these dinosaur skeletons while our things were being checked upon entrance, they matched what I had in my head:
But, when we actually explored, there was so much more I hadn’t expected to be exhibited. Things like tools, jewelry, ornaments, clothing used by humans centuries ago, diagrams of insects, paintings, and they even explained the process of how societies built up their well, society. And this is only from the 1 floor we saw! We were pressed for time so we couldn’t explore too much. But, my negative take from what I saw is that the museum doesn’t provide more details on what they’re displaying. It gives a summation but not much on what I’m looking at. Here are additional photos I took from the trip.
I thought I’d be really excited when I saw more of the human mannequins in their “natural settings” but I was more leaps and bounds excited when we saw the animals in their habitat.
Not only do you see these models and sculptures but scenic artists have painted both above and behind the models to show perspective and background and it accentuates and makes each “world” pop even more.
So that background in the gorilla’s world below is really just a painting.
Like I said the best part for me was seeing the animals. I kept saying I wanted to take my mom here because she’s a big wildlife animal fan, she loves seeing live lions and tigers especially and while these aren’t alive in front of her they are at least life-like and I think she’ll get a kick out of it. So on that trip I’ll explore the museum much more and write about that new info.
Happy Sunday.
