Significant wildlife art exhibit opens at James Museum
A new exhibition at the James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art takes aim at the manner in which wild animals were “shot,” without guns but before the popular spread of photography.
Survival of the Fittest, on view Feb. 17 through May 26, features oil paintings – 45 in total – by German Richard Friese (1854–1918), Swede Bruno Liljefors (1860–1939), German Wilhelm Kuhnert (1865–1926) and German-American Carl Rungius (1869–1959).
Historically, these artists are collectively known as The Big Four.
Their work is significant, explains Curator of Art Emily Kapes, because they were inspired by Charles Darwin’s then-newly published theories about the origins of species. “It was a new way of thinking about wildlife and evolution, so it was all kind of related at the time.”
They were the first artist to travel – throughout Europe, to Africa, Asia and the American continents – to depict animals in their natural habitat.
“Before then,” Kapes explains, “it was more illustrative. Artists might go to zoos to get their information.”
Carl Rungius (Germany, 1869 – 1959), Three Caribou at Mount Robson, n.d. Oil on canvas. 30
× 40 inches. Collection of the Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede, Netherlands. © Estate of Carl
Rungius. Photograph by Rik Klein Gotink.
And the backgrounds – the “habitats” – were inconsequential to them. “It just wasn’t important. But we know now that it is very important.”
Everything changed with the Big Four, whose work depicted moose, elk, big cats, birds, bears and other species doing what they do – fighting, breeding and sometimes attacking and devouring one another – in the center of brilliantly rendered natural scenes.
Instead of game, or food, or things to be exploited or gawked at in zoos and circuses, people began to see wild creatures in a new light.
“Because these artists were traveling at a really intense time of colonialism, all over the world,” Kapes explains, “they were able to see, too, the effects of colonialism on these areas, and how the animals were affected.
“So conservation thoughts were coming around at this time – ‘oh, we need to preserve this. Maybe we need parks. Let’s make sure there are plans in place so that we don’t hunt all the animals.’”
The touring exhibit’s full title is Survival of the Fittest: Envisioning Wildlife and Wilderness with the Big Four, Masterworks from the Rijksmuseum Twenthe and the National Museum of Wildlife Art.
