[Nhcoll-l] Brooklyn Museum Habitat Groups

[Rungius Raisonné]

I am working on a catalogue raisonne of the paintings of Carl Rungius.

He painted two diorama backgrounds for the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and
Sciences, now the Brooklyn Museum, in the late 1920s. In the Natural
History world, he is best known for his background painting for the moose
diorama at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan.

The Brooklyn habitat groups were disassembled by the 1950s, but I have had
no luck finding out if the contents of the dioramas were disposed of or
sent elsewhere. I would love to find out if any of you has done any work on
the Brooklyn habitat groups and could help with this query. Quality
historic photos or maybe a lead on where these dioramas ended up would be
great.

I have been to the Brooklyn Museum library and archives and have poor
quality images of each diorama, but no other solid information. I can share
these images if anyone's interested - email me at cr at wildlifeart.org.

He worked on the backgrounds for the Newfoundland Caribou group and the
Alaskan Brown Bear group.

The Caribou group background was also worked on by his sister - Elizabeth
Rungius Fulda.

*Brooklyn Museum Quarterly* 15, N. 2, April, 1928

"Notes and Accessions: Carl Rungius, one of the foremost landscape and big
game painters in America, has completed work on the background painting for
the large habitat group of the Alaskan brown bear. This is a great
improvement over the former means of displaying it as the exhibit up to now
has been shown only in a four-wall glass case. *The setting shows the bears
against a background of the Pavlof Volcano in Alaska*. The composition is
cleverly arranged to bring the lines from the mountains down into the
foreground so as to give the effect of distance. Two of the bears are shown
fighting standing on their hind legs while other specimens are arranged
around them on the rocks on the shore of a lake.” (p. 70)

Many thanks,

Adam

-- 
*Adam Duncan Harris, Ph.D. | Grainger/Kerr Director of the Carl Rungius
Catalogue Raisonn**é*
cr at wildlifeart.org* | *Rungius Raisonné at wildlifeart.org
<https://www.wildlifeart.org/collection/carl-rungius-catalogue-raisonne>
307-690-0932
*An Independent Project of the National Museum of Wildlife Art of the
United States*

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