Carl Akeley
Naturalist,Taxidermist,Sculptor,Explorer
This page is a short tribute to the father of modern taxidermy, Carl Akeley and his amazing wildlife sculptures in bronze. Carl Akeley’s masterpiece and the culmination of almost seventeen years of work is the Akeley Hall of African Mammals, which stands as a tribute to his skills and ability to capture the wild and savage spirit of darkest Africa in both his museum dioramas, showcasing his pioneering taxidermy techniques and his brilliant bronze sculptures. Akeley's skills were interdisciplinary, covering taxidermy, sculpting, biology, conservation, invention and nature film-making. He specialised in the study and collection of African mammals, and mounted several expeditions, including trips where he accompanied President Theodore Roosevelt on year-long expeditions in Africa, to secure specimens for the museum.
Over the years that Akeley worked at the Field Museum, he gradually perfected his revolutionary and innovative technique for mounting his taxidermy specimens, with the fabrication of lightweight models and using the animal's skeletal structure as a guide. The animal's musculature was built up, layer by layer, until every tendon, muscle and vein had been rendered with exacting detail, after which he mounted the animal's skins, thereby achieving a level of realism not seen in the art of taxidermy before.
Over the years that Akeley worked at the Field Museum, he gradually perfected his revolutionary and innovative technique for mounting his taxidermy specimens, with the fabrication of lightweight models and using the animal's skeletal structure as a guide. The animal's musculature was built up, layer by layer, until every tendon, muscle and vein had been rendered with exacting detail, after which he mounted the animal's skins, thereby achieving a level of realism not seen in the art of taxidermy before.
Carl Akeley’s work in bronze sculpture was no less amazing then his work in taxidermy. At the Field Museum he completed a variety of sculptures depicting wildlife from his beloved Africa. Pieces that evoked the savage beauty of the African wild such as his famous bronze life-size castings of lion spearing Ugandan tribesmen, also showing the Nandi Men with raised shields, celebrating after the lion was killed. This piece was completed in 1925. Carl Akeley’s lion spearing bronzes, consist of three groups :
“The Charge”- lion and lioness charging hunters.
“The Attack" - Nandi spear men meeting charge of lions, and
“The Requiem”- Spear men chanting over the body of the dead lion.
Akeley did numerous smaller bronze studies such as “The Wounded Comrade”, which is a dynamic study of three elephants and others entitled “The Charging Herd,”, “Stung,” and “Lion and Buffalo, A Tragedy of the Veldt”. Another masterpiece is his “The Old Man of Mikeno”, a bust of an old male mountain gorilla from the Belgian Congo.
Carl Akeley was a true Polymath through his interdisciplinary approach to the study and preservation of Natural history. For a detailed biography on the life and work of Carl Akeley see the book "Kingdom Under Glass" by Jay Kirk
“The Charge”- lion and lioness charging hunters.
“The Attack" - Nandi spear men meeting charge of lions, and
“The Requiem”- Spear men chanting over the body of the dead lion.
Akeley did numerous smaller bronze studies such as “The Wounded Comrade”, which is a dynamic study of three elephants and others entitled “The Charging Herd,”, “Stung,” and “Lion and Buffalo, A Tragedy of the Veldt”. Another masterpiece is his “The Old Man of Mikeno”, a bust of an old male mountain gorilla from the Belgian Congo.
Carl Akeley was a true Polymath through his interdisciplinary approach to the study and preservation of Natural history. For a detailed biography on the life and work of Carl Akeley see the book "Kingdom Under Glass" by Jay Kirk
Carl Akeley's essay describing his experiences lion spearing with Ugandan tribesmen.
An excerpt from Roosevelt's African Game Trails is also include, describing lion spearing with the Nandi (relations of the Masai) in South Africa. Akeley later made a series of bronze sculptures portraying the hunt. Click Below to download PDF |
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Lion Spearing essay
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Carl Akeley, The Man Who Turned Taxidermy Into An Art Form
The Lion-Hunters, Bronze sculptures by Carl Akeley
"Akeley's group of life size lions is a powerful piece of action and none but an artist and one who had sculptural instinct could pose and group the animal subjects of his taxidermy which are shown in the American Museum of Natural History and the Field Museum of Chicago." - James Earle Fraser - 1927
Masterpieces in Bronze
“The requiem” Spearmen chanting over body of the dead lion. , Bronze Carl Akeley
The Charging Herd, Bronze by Carl Akeley
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'Stung" Bronze by Carl Akeley
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"Indeed, when he finally turned to sculpture,
he did so with the best interests of his taxidermy." - Dorothy S. Greene
he did so with the best interests of his taxidermy." - Dorothy S. Greene
"The Old Man of Mikeno", bronze bust of a mountain gorilla by Carl Akeley.
The Lion-Hunters, Bronze sculptures by Carl Akeley
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"To appreciate fully the educational and aesthetic significance of Carl Akeley's work would require a serious review of the history of taxidermy, and unfortunately has never been made the subject of careful investigation." - William Morton Wheeler Professor - Harvard University (1865 - 1937)
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