Diorama diversity.

• Position: Museums Today

THE AMERICAN MUSEUM of Natural History is one of the world's preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions. Since its founding in 1869, the museum has advanced its global mission to explore and interpret human cultures and the natural world through a wide-reaching program of scientific research, education, and exhibitions. The institution houses 46 permanent exhibition halls, state-of-the-art research laboratories, one of the Western Hemisphere's largest natural history libraries, and a permanent collection of more than 30,000,000 specimens and cultural artifacts. With a scientific staff of more than 200, the museum supports research divisions in Anthropology, Paleontology, Invertebrate and Vertebrate Zoology, and the Physical Sciences.

Yet, for all who visit, the museum remains, above all, a visual feast, in no small part due to the vivid, lifelike murals that serve as backdrops to so many of the animal dioramas found throughout the great edifice's many exhibition halls--and no wonder. When executing these precisely rendered images, the museum engaged some of the very best artists of the day to bring life on planet Earth to ... well ... life.

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Arthur August Jansson (1890-1960) served as a background painter for dioramas in AMNH's Hall of Asian Mammals, the Akeley Hall of African Mammals, and the Birds of the World hall. Jansson accompanied Carl Akeley on Akeley's final expedition to Africa in 1926 to gather field sketches for the dioramas in the African Hall. Jansson also completed diorama backgrounds for the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. He trained at the Art Students League in New York from 1909-12, as well as at the New York Industrial Arts School and the School of Modern Methods in Chicago.

Dudley M. Blakely (1902-82) contributed background paintings and foreground work to the Akeley Hall of African Mammals, such as the gemsbok diorama, during the 1930s. He also designed and fabricated exhibits and provided architectural drawings and models for the Cranbrook Institute of Science in Michigan, where he was in charge of the exhibit department. He worked for the Museum of Science, Boston, as well.

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Belmore Browne (1880-1954) received his training at the New York School of Art and the Academie Julian in Paris, pursuing a career as an illustrator and painter of wildlife and wilderness. As a naturalist, Browne participated in a number of AMNH expeditions to Alaska...