2005 November 19 - 2006 August 20
Summary
Exhibition. Opened November 16, 2005 and closed August 20, 2006. Located in Section 3, Floor 3 in Gallery 3 at the American Museum of Natural History. Darwin explored the life, times, discoveries, and legacy of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and featured a broad collection of artifacts, specimens - including live plants and animals from the Galápagos - original manuscripts, and memorabilia. Darwin was part of a series of exhibitions at the Museum on great thinkers, explorers, and scientists such as Albert Einstein, Ernest Shackleton, and Leonardo Da Vinci. The exhibition was curated by Niles Eldredge, curator in the American Museum of Natural History’s Division of Paleontology. Darwin scholar David Kohn and evolutionary biologist Douglas Futuyma also contributed to the exhibition (1, p. 1; 6). Darwin was designed and produced by the American Museum of Natural History’s Department of Exhibition under the direction of David Harvey, Vice President for Exhibition. Sean Murtha of the Department of Exhibition created a study for the Galápagos turtle background (1, p. 7; 3).
The exhibition was mounted in cooperation with English Heritage, the organization that administers Down House, Darwin’s longtime home; the Natural History Museum, London; Cambridge University, one of the primary repositories of Darwin’s writings; and some of Darwin’s living descendants (1, p. 7).
Sections and highlights included (1, p. 4-7):
*Introduction which included live Galápagos tortoises and Darwin’s magnifying glass
*The World Before Darwin explained that organisms were understood not to have evolved since their divine creation and included an antique display case with mounts of mammal, reptile, and bird skeletons.
*Young Naturalist which included Darwin’s geologic hammer and a re-creation of Hutton’s Unconformity, a famous rock outcrop in Scotland which Darwin and other geologists recognized as evidence of Earth’s long history
*“The Life and Work of Charles Darwin”: a video biography of Charles Darwin narrated by his great-great grandson, conservationist and author Randal Keynes
This is a condensed summary of the exhibition. For additional information, see Sources and/or Related Resources.
*A Trip Around the World which illustrated the mission of the H.M.S. Beagle and the clues that led Darwin to see how living species were connected. This section featured the original letter from Darwin’s mentor, J.S. Henslow inviting him to join the voyage, a 26-inch long model of the Beagle, and Darwin’s pistol and Bible from the voyage, mounted specimens of sloths, rheas, and armadillos, actual specimens collected on the voyage including beetles, butterflies, moths, bugs, and fossils, and live Argentinian tree frogs and a live iguana.
*The Idea Takes Shape portrayed the period of five years after the Beagle voyage that Darwin spent in London developing his theory, and included notebooks, letters, and the original fossil skull of Toxodon platensis, which was collected on the Beagle mission.
*A Life’s Work included an elaborate reconstruction of Darwin’s study at Down House, where he refined his theory and completed On the Origin of Species, an original manuscript of On the Origin of Species, personal items such as a writing box of mementos collected by Darwin’s wife to remember their daughter Annie, and a large-scale video presentation which took visitors on a virtual walk along the Sandwalk, the sand path at Down House, used by frequently by Darwin
*Evolution, Today demonstrated contemporary examples of evolutionary research with interactive stations, a sub-section: Social Reactions to Darwin, and video interviews with scientists discussing Darwin’s impact on modern science and society with Francisco Ayala, Evolutionary Biologist, University of California, Irvine; Francis Collins, Director, Human Genome Project; Georgia Dunston, Microbiologist, Howard University; Richard Fortey, Paleontologist, Natural History Museum, London; Kenneth Miller, Biologist, Brown University; and Eugenie Scott, Executive Director, National Center for Science Education.
*Endless Forms Most Beautiful featured a montage of live and photographed orchids, which Darwin studied to understand manifestations of adaptation in nature, and an audio reading by Randal Keynes of the last paragraph in On the Origin of Species: “...from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
The leading sponsor for the exhibition was The Howard Phipps Foundation with additional significant support provided by Chris and Sharon Davis, Bill and Leslie Miller, the Austin Hearst Foundation, Jack and Susan Rudin, and Rosalind P. Walter. Additional funding was provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Dr. Linda K. Jacobs (1, p. 7).
Public programs in conjunction with the exhibition included lectures, panel and roundtable discussions, children and family programs. The Museum’s Discovery Tours Program hosted trips to the Galápagos. An IMAX film, Galápagos, which opened on October 17, 2005 at the Museum, was shown in conjunction with the exhibition (2). A companion book titled Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life by curator Niles Eldredge was published by W.W. Norton Company (1, p. 7).
A webpage dedicated to the exhibition on the Museum’s website provided digital images of documents and artifacts in the exhibition and provided behind-the-scenes photographs of the making of the exhibition. It remains archived on the Museum’s website and is linked in Related Resources below (1, p. 7).
The exhibition won several awards, including 365 Year in Design 27: American Institute of Graphic Arts, 2006; Award of Merit, Society for Environmental Graphic Design, 2006; Award of Merit for Innovative Use of Archives, Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York, 2006 (4, p. 27)
After its run at the American Museum of Natural History, the exhibition traveled to the Museum of Science, Boston (December 2, 2006–April 22, 2007); followed by The Field Museum, Chicago (June 15, 2007–January 1, 2008); followed by the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada (March 8, 2008–August 5, 2008); and finally the Natural History Museum, London (October 2008–March 2009) (1, p. 9). Related exhibitions based on the original were held at Instituto Sangari in São Paulo, Brazil in 2007 and at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, Italy from February 12 – May 3, 2009 co-curated by Niles Eldredge, Ian Tattersall from the Museum’s Department of Anthropology, and Telmo Pievani (5; 6).
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