Erwin Sachem Christman (January 14, 1885 – November 14, 1921) was an American palaeoartist, known for his sculptures of Cenozoic mammals, skeletal reconstructions, and his work on the famous 1912 skeletal mount of Tyrannosaurus rex.[1]

Erwin S. Christman
Erwin S. Christman sculpting the head of Megacerops (then Brontotherium)
Born(1885-01-14)January 14, 1885
Clinton, New Jersey
DiedNovember 14, 1921(1921-11-14) (aged 36)
New York City, New York
NationalityAmerican
EducationArt Students League, National Academy of Design
Known forPainting, sculpting

Biography

edit

Early life

edit

Little is known of Christman's early life, aside from that he was born in Clinton, New Jersey on January 14, 1885. He studied at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design, working under the supervision of palaeontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn.[2]

Career

edit

His first published illustrations were a series of illustrations of the holotype of Tyrannosaurus rex,[1] published in 1906.[2] In 1912, he produced a scale-model diorama for a planned Tyrannosaurus mount; this early version was shelved for its complexity.[1] Subsequently, he provided skull diagrams for Barnum Brown's 1916 paper describing the hadrosaur Prosaurolophus maximus, a suite of reconstructions of the sauropod Camarasaurus lentus for Osborn and Charles Craig Mook's 1921 monograph,[3] and several illustrations and sculptures of brontothere heads. Christman died on November 14, 1921, in New York City.[2][4]

References

edit
  1. ^ a b c Ashworth, William B. (November 27, 2017). "Scientist of the Day: Erwin Christman". Linda Hall Library.
  2. ^ a b c "Erwin S. Christman". American Museum of Natural History.
  3. ^ "Paper Dinosaurs, 1824–1969 | Linda Hall Library". dino.lindahall.org. Retrieved 2023-12-17.
  4. ^ "DSI – datatabase of scientific illustrators 1450–1950". dsi.hi.uni-stuttgart.de. Retrieved 2023-12-17.