Art

Art for Interpretation

Left image
The artist's signature

Right image
Bart Frost, one of the sculptors of Tumacácori's museum dioramas.

 

• Pen Scratching

  
  

  Artistic renderings have long been used to interpret history.
  Audio Transcript

  quill pen scratching on paper

 

How It Was

When it comes to telling the story of the past, a picture (or a sculpture) is definitely worth a thousand words.

When the Tumacácori museum first opened in 1937, the country was in the midst of the Great Depression. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” programs were helping families get back on their feet by employing people in federally funded “public works” projects. Among these projects was the museum workshop in Berkeley, California, which employed designers, artists, and craftsmen. Well-known sculptor Eugene Morahan created the bronze statue of Kino that stands in the breezeway of Tumacácori’s visitor center. It took a team to create the elaborate dioramas which can still be seen in the museum: Bart Frost created many of the little wax figures, Natasha Smith sculpted animals, Lorenzo Moffett and Paul Rockwood painted figures and backdrops.

By the late 1960s, new information was available. The NPS hired local artist Jimmie Trujillo to paint illustrations of church interior decorations. Experienced museum artist Cal Peters produced new artwork showing the mission structures in use.

 

How It Is Now

Artists were again critical to the most recent museum refresh. Featuring prominently in the middle of the museum, the artistry of retired Arizona State Park employee Wade Cox accurately depicts an attack on the mission by Apache raiders in 1801, and the gathering of Jesuit missionaries at Mátape as they began the long trek toward deportation from New Spain.

When the National Park Service’s brand new Harpers Ferry Interpretive Design Center opened in 1970, revision of the Tumacácori museum was among their first projects. Harpers Ferry Center staff again stepped in during the final stages of the latest museum redesign, which opened in time for the park’s centennial in 2008.

Most recently, Harpers Ferry planners, designers, and writers took on the project of creating a new brochure for Tumacácori. Pennsylvania-based illustrator James Mann visited, measured, studied, and questioned every tiny detail of mission life to create and people the aerial view of the active mission community that is the focal illustration of the park’s new brochure.

 

Learn More

Tumacácori's Visitor Center and Museum
Harper's Ferry Center

 

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  Little People Made of Wax

  A closer look at the small yet mighty wax figures crafted for the Tumacácori museum during the New Deal era.

  Duration:

  2 minutes, 59 seconds