American Museum of Natural History Research Library
author: American Museum of Natural History

How Exhibits Are Made (Exhibition)
birth: 1954 March 5
death: 1954 June, approximately
Exhibition. Opened March 5, 1954 and closed approximately June 1954. Located in Section 2, Floor 1 in the Grand Gallery at the American Museum of Natural History. How Exhibits Are Made explained the complex process of creating exhibitions for the American Museum of Natural History.
Summary
How Exhibits Are Made at the American Museum of Natural History explained the complex process of creating exhibitions for the Museum. It opened in a newly redecorated Grand Gallery (Seventy-Seventh Street Foyer). The new Foyer and the exhibition were designed by L. Brooks Freeman, the Museum's Chief Designer, and Museum Art Director Gordon Reekie. The exhibition traced the story of creating exhibition through research, art, and craftmanship. A concurrent exhibition, The Horse and Man, was also on view in Seventy-Seventh Street Foyer at the time of its reopening in 1954 (1, p. 1-2).
The exhibition, a thirteen-panel display, included (1, p. 1-2):
*Free-standing photographic murals
*Photographs, including those of carpenters, electricians, painters, metal workers, and plasterers executing the designs created by the exhibition department and architects
*Cases of objects collected during expeditions
*Cases demonstrating the process of preparing skins and hide for exhibits
*Section on "Story Development", which included an architectural scale model, a sketch, blueprint, a rendering, and photographs
*Section on completed exhibitions
This is a condensed summary of the exhibition. For additional information, see Sources and/or Related Resources.