Exciting changes are happening at the Field Museum, thanks to a generous donation from the Kenneth C. Griffin Charitable Fund. Our famous T. Rex, Sue, is getting a new home and a fresh pose based on the latest scientific research. Did you know that T. Rexes had special belly ribs called gastralia? Scientists have been puzzled about how these ribs fit with the rest of the skeleton, but new ideas are helping us understand what these mighty creatures really looked like.
Art plays a crucial role in helping us imagine what life was like millions of years ago. The Field Museum has a rich history of artists who have brought prehistoric creatures to life through their work. However, finding information about these talented individuals wasn’t easy. I reached out to museums across the U.S. and Europe, contacted family members, and dug through archives to uncover their stories. Let me introduce you to the Field Museum’s amazing artists of prehistory.
One of the first and most famous prehistoric artists at the Field Museum was Charles Knight. His work is celebrated in books and galleries worldwide. Knight’s incredible attention to detail came from observing animals at zoos and creating three-dimensional models to study how light interacted with them. Between 1927 and 1931, he painted 28 massive murals for the museum’s Hall of Fossil Vertebrates, including the iconic “T. Rex versus Triceratops.” These murals inspired many artists and filmmakers.
Despite being legally blind, Knight’s paintings are masterpieces. He lost vision in one eye due to an accident and developed an astigmatism in the other. Yet, he completed his murals with his left eye just inches from the canvas. His work beautifully captures the passage of time, with older scenes appearing hazy and newer ones more vivid and colorful.
Following Knight, John Conrad Hansen joined the museum as an artist. Originally from Norway, Hansen moved to the U.S. at age 12. Despite his shyness and unique beliefs, he became a talented paleo artist. Interestingly, Hansen didn’t believe these ancient creatures ever existed due to his religious views. Nevertheless, his imaginative paintings of prehistoric life were displayed alongside skeletons in the Fossil Hall for many years.
Maidi Wiebe, born in Germany in 1922, was another remarkable artist at the Field Museum. Her early life was shaped by World War II, but she pursued her passion for art despite the challenges. In 1951, she moved to Chicago and was hired by the museum for her exceptional skills. Wiebe illustrated scientific papers, children’s books, and created models of prehistoric life. Her work included designing the Gorgosaurus, affectionately known as Gorgeous George, which was the first free-standing dinosaur mount in any museum.
Wiebe’s contributions helped bring prehistoric creatures to life, and her work remains a vital part of the museum’s history. She continued her artistic journey until 1962, leaving a lasting legacy.
While new research continues to reshape our understanding of extinct life forms, the art created by Knight, Hansen, and Wiebe remains invaluable. Their work helped scientists communicate their discoveries and allowed us to imagine the ancient world. If you visit the Field Museum, you can still see the Gorgosaurus, standing proudly without any support, a testament to the incredible work of these artists.
Through their art, these talented individuals have ensured that the wonders of prehistoric life continue to captivate and educate us today.
Imagine you’re an artist at the Field Museum. Using the information from the article, draw or paint your own version of a dinosaur, such as a T. Rex or Triceratops. Pay attention to details like the gastralia ribs and try to incorporate them into your artwork. Share your creation with the class and explain the choices you made in your depiction.
Choose one of the artists mentioned in the article—Charles Knight, John Conrad Hansen, or Maidi Wiebe. Research more about their life and contributions to prehistoric art. Prepare a short presentation to share with the class, highlighting their unique techniques and how they influenced the way we visualize dinosaurs today.
Work in small groups to create a diorama that depicts a prehistoric scene, inspired by the murals and models at the Field Museum. Use materials like clay, paper, and paint to bring your scene to life. Consider the environment, other creatures, and plants that might have existed alongside your chosen dinosaur.
Imagine you are living in the time of the dinosaurs. Write a short story or diary entry describing a day in your life, incorporating details about the dinosaurs and environment based on what you’ve learned from the article. Share your story with the class and discuss how art helps us understand the past.
Pair up with a classmate and role-play an interview between a journalist and one of the artists from the article. Prepare questions about their artistic process, challenges they faced, and their impact on the Field Museum. Perform your interview for the class, highlighting key insights about the artist’s contributions to prehistoric art.
Here’s a sanitized version of the provided YouTube transcript:
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♪ We’re undergoing some changes here at the Field Museum thanks to a donation from the Kenneth C. Griffin Charitable Fund. We’re relocating and updating the pose of our T. Rex, Sue, to reflect new research on these animals. T. Rexes have belly ribs called gastralia, but nobody could figure out how they were supposed to articulate with the rest of the skeleton. Instead of looking like this, we think T. Rexes looked like this. That got me thinking about how important art is to our understanding of prehistoric life as well as the artists who have worked at the Field Museum.
But digging up information about our past artists in geology was no simple feat. I contacted partner museums from the United States and Europe, sought out family members of the artists, and scoured archives for information and records. I made use of more interlibrary loan requests than any other time. The work from these artists touches millions of people, yet the information about two of the three was virtually unknown, and I wanted to change that. I bring you the Field Museum’s artists of prehistory.
One of the first prehistoric artists the Field Museum hired was Charles Knight. He is also the best known. Books and galleries have been devoted to his life’s work and talents. Part of the realism in his studies came from his observations of animals. He spent time at zoos drawing the animals. For painting the prehistoric, Knight went to great lengths to create three-dimensional models which he would take outside to see how the sunlight played off of their features. Between 1927 and 1931, Knight was commissioned by the Field Museum to create 28 gigantic murals to chronicle life on Earth in our new Hall of Fossil Vertebrates. They’ve become his most iconic series, with a few standouts like “T. Rex versus Triceratops,” which inspired artists and filmmakers at the time.
One of the most incredible things about Knight’s massive accomplishments was that he was legally blind. He was hit in one eye with a rock, sustaining permanent corneal damage, and later developed an astigmatism in the other. The murals for the Field were completed with his left eye inches from the canvas. What I love about Knight’s paintings is how he conveyed the passage of time. The majority of his works are on display in our Evolving Planet Exhibition. If you look at the murals in sequence, ranging from the oldest to the newest, you’ll notice the images become clearer over time. The more ancient the subject, the hazier the memory until everything comes into sharp focus with bolder colors in the Pleistocene.
Among Knight’s admirers was author Ray Bradbury, who reflected on the fleeting nature of existence and the importance of creating lasting work. Knight was followed by two other artists who were much less recognized but similarly talented, each with their own unique personal story and style. The first was John Conrad Hansen, who was chronically shy and an enigma. Having immigrated to the United States from Trondheim, Norway, when he was 12, he lived with his mother in Minneapolis until her death in 1928. He moved around, making his way to Chicago where he worked for a calendar company and painted church altarpieces. Then, when most people are settling into retirement, Hansen decided on a second career. He contacted the Field in 1940 and was hired as an artist when he was 71.
What’s intriguing about his role as a paleo artist is that he didn’t believe these extinct creatures lived. Hansen’s religious convictions and his belief in the biblical flood didn’t mesh with the animals he was painting, so he referred to them as “the objects.” In spite of that, his imagination in depicting ancient animals was world-class, and many of his paintings hung with the articulated skeletons in the Fossil Hall for years. He worked for the Field until a month before his death in 1952 at the age of 84.
Shortly before Conrad Hansen’s death, another artist was hired by the geology department. Maidi Wiebe was born in Germany in 1922, but not much about her early life is known even to her family. She grew up during World War II and was impacted by the experience. While her family certainly endured hardships, they were fortunate to be German. She was able to pursue a university education in Poland in 1943, but was interrupted toward the end of the war as the Soviet army approached their town. Maidi and her family were evacuated with other German refugees, and in 1946, she re-enrolled at the University of Frankfurt, determined to study art. Wiebe had a sense of independence that was unusual for women at that time. In 1951, she departed for Chicago and later that year was hired enthusiastically by curators at the Field Museum who recognized her talents as an exceptional naturalist and artist.
She created figures for scientific papers, illustrated a number of children’s books, carried on Hansen’s work painting prehistoric life, and created scale models to accompany the mounted skeletons on display. Some of her work can be seen around the museum in the geology cases on the second floor, where she illustrated geologic phenomena, including impact craters from meteorites. It’s in these photographs of her looking poised and polished, but painting scenes of epic destruction, that piqued my interest in learning about her.
One of Wiebe’s projects was designing and modeling new dinosaurs for display in our main hall: a Gorgosaurus, known as Gorgeous George, in the middle of eating a Lambeosaurus. When it was unveiled in 1956, Gorgeous George was the first free-standing dinosaur mount in any museum. Eugene Richardson, the curator of fossil invertebrates, found it so remarkable he wrote a poem about it which was delivered upon its unveiling to the public. Maidi’s illustrations and models played a big part in breathing life into the project, and her miniatures were on display next to the mounted skeletons until they were removed from the hall in 1990. The dinosaur skeletons were remounted to display a more modern anatomical understanding and are still on display in our Evolving Planet Exhibition.
Maidi’s work continued until 1962, when she left the museum at the age of 40, but she carried a love of art in the natural world throughout her life. Many things have changed since the Field first commissioned these artists to help tell the story of life on Earth. New research is reshaping the way we interpret extinct life forms. Today, while we might not point to Knight’s or Wiebe’s depictions of Cretaceous apex predators as the most modern representations of them, that doesn’t mean their art has lost its value. It’s through the work of these artists that researchers were able to communicate the progress of science and bring our ancient world back to life.
Come and see the Gorgosaurus. Tall as life, though somewhat thinner, standing in the hall before us interrupted in his dinner. 100 million years ago, he found a Lambeosaurus to munch on. Something stopped his feast and so he never had that final luncheon. Long ago, in the Cretaceous, Gorgosaurus roamed Alberta ever hungry, fierce, voracious, seeking smaller prey. Then he died, became a fossil buried near the Red Deer River, passed the years asleep in docile giving not a jerk or quiver. Found and shipped to the museum with that meal he never tasted, here he stands and here you see him, not a bone on him was wasted. Other skeletons of his bulk must be held erect by crutches; not a post is seen on this hulk, just the floor is all he touches. Engineers may be well baffled by the structure we’re reporting; here he stands without a scaffold. Gorgosaur is self-supporting. Accessibility provided by the U.S. Department of Education. ♪ (Emily Graslie) It still has brains on it.
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This version maintains the content while removing any sensitive or potentially inappropriate language.
Art – The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture. – The art class visited the gallery to study the famous paintings and sculptures.
Science – The systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. – In science class, we conducted an experiment to learn about the properties of different materials.
Dinosaurs – A group of reptiles that lived millions of years ago, known for their large size and diverse species. – The students were fascinated by the dinosaur skeletons displayed at the museum.
Museum – A building or institution that houses and cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, or historical importance. – We spent the afternoon exploring the science museum, learning about ancient civilizations and natural history.
Prehistoric – Relating to or denoting the period before written records. – The prehistoric cave paintings gave us a glimpse into the lives of early humans.
Creatures – Living beings, especially animals. – The documentary featured various creatures that inhabit the ocean’s depths.
Research – The systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions. – The scientist conducted research to discover more about the behavior of migratory birds.
Artists – People who create art, such as paintings, sculptures, or music, using their imagination and skill. – The artists displayed their work at the local exhibit, showcasing a variety of styles and techniques.
Legacy – Something handed down by a predecessor, often referring to cultural or artistic heritage. – The legacy of the ancient architects can be seen in the ruins of their magnificent structures.
Fossils – The preserved remains or impressions of organisms that lived in the past, typically found in sedimentary rock. – We learned how fossils are formed and what they can tell us about Earth’s history.
