James Lippitt Clark (1883 – 1969) was an accomplished animal sculptor,
taxidermist, explorer and big-game hunter. Clark was employed by the American
Museum of Natural History from 1902 to 1908, and again from 1923 to 1949, and
served as the museum’s Director of Arts, Preparation and Installation from 1935
until his retirement. Clark is known for his innovations in specimen preparation
and display, his creative direction of the museum’s mammal halls, and for his
role in several expeditions on behalf of the museum, both within North America
and to remote regions of Africa, Central Asia and Southeast Asia.
William James Morden was born in Chicago, Ill. on January 3, 1886 to a
wealthy family with a railroad business. He graduated from the Sheffield
Scientific School of Yale University in 1908 with an advanced degree in
engineering, which he put to use while working for his family’s company before
serving as a lieutenant in the Army Engineers Corps in France during WWI. Morden
began his life as an explorer in 1921 when he took off on his first journey, an
AMNH expedition to the Yukon Territory. Four major expeditions followed which
were also under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History. These
included voyages to central Asia for the Morden-Clark Asiatic Expedition in 1926
and the Morden-Graves Expedition in 1929-1930, and to Africa for the Morden
African Expedition in 1922-1923 and for another expedition conducted 1947 and
again in 1953.