Picturing the Museum: a New Online Exhibit from the American Museum of Natural History

Museum staff cleaning elephant skin.
Photo: Thane L. Bierwert, American Museum of Natural History (1933)

The American Museum of Natural History has just launched a new web exhibit called "Picturing the Museum: Education and Exhibition at The American Museum of Natural History." The exhibit features about 1,000 photographs from the massive archive of the museum, spanning from the late 19th- to late 20th century.

Joanna Ebenstein of Morbid Anatomy blog, who also worked as a scanner and a retoucher on this project, wrote to us:

The photos themselves are amazing–dramatically lit and composed,
as well as often unintentionally surrealistic, and offer a nice peek into what
the museum used to look like, behind the scenes glimpses of the fabrication of the dioramas, and the animal artists at work. Jawdropping stuff–really!

… and we wholeheartedly agree! The stuff is fantastic: Link – Thanks Joanna!