Exploring Wildlife Art

In honor of the Museum’s 30th Anniversary in 2017, this exhibition features a new gallery layout with engaging stories exploring humanity’s relationship with wildlife and nature. The installation of wildlife art presents old favorites, like Robert Bateman’s Chief, alongside never-before-seen acquisitions. Emphasis is placed on the art and history of this region, including the groundbreaking work of figures like Thomas Moran, whose magnificent paintings of Yellowstone helped convince Congress to create the world’s first national park. Looking deeper into the history of North American art, Native American birdstones dating from 2500 b.c. complement Euro-American painting and sculpture from the 1800s and 1900s displaying the beauty and bounty of a continent filled with amazing populations of wildlife.

Other galleries look at how European global exploration and the work of Charles Darwin influenced the way we see wildlife today; the development of Carl Rungius into the world’s premiere painter of North American wildlife; and how modern artists like Georgia O’Keeffe incorporated wildlife into their exploration of the boundaries of art. Rotating exhibits of living artists, ranging from traditional to contemporary in style, round out this reinstallation that is sure to delight as it engages us in new ways of exploring wildlife art.

This Exploring Wildlife Art exhibition spans many Museum galleries including: Greene Pathways, JKM, Widener, Rungius, and Kuhn.