The Watering Hole

At the heart of Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s popular Hall of African Wildlife is the Watering Hole diorama and its panoramic view of a variety of animals—gazelles, zebras, giraffes, even a warthog—in the recreated ecosystems of Kenya’s wet and dry savanna. The beloved display’s backstory begins with the adventures of a then-young biologist Childs Frick, the oldest son of Pittsburgh industrialist Henry Clay Frick and Adelaide Howard Childs, who donated to the museum some 500 mammals he collected from 1909 to 1912 on two scientific expeditions to East Africa. A conservationist, Frick didn’t simply take aim at the largest targets; he collected examples of adult females, sub-adults, and juveniles, providing the museum with a more accurate representation of the animal kingdom. He then shipped the treated skins and skeletons back to Pittsburgh where he knew the finest taxidermists awaited their arrival. Remi and Joseph Santens were not just taxidermists; they were artists. Now, more than a century later, their work—complete with amazing details, such as flexing muscles and bulging veins—still infuses the Watering Hole and other museum displays with a striking sense of reality.