Skip to content

The Harvard Gazette

The artist and her evolution

A detailed narrative of Rome

Arts & Humanities

The artist and her evolution

Piranha in a jar.

Arts & Humanities

The artist and her evolution

“The piranha in this jar comes from the Thayer Expedition to Brazil, a collecting foray led by Louis Agassiz, who made his students responsible for catching and preparing fish specimens,” Rosamond Purcell said. A label on a jar at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology says the fish was caught by the philosopher William James, she said.

Photos by Rosamond Purcell

Photographer Rosamond Purcell to talk about her long relationship with Harvard

By Rebecca Coleman Harvard Correspondent

Date

Share

The first thing Rosamond Purcell photographed at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology back in the 1980s was a pangolin, or scaly anteater, with “armor-like overlapping limpet shells and rapier claws.” The animal caught her eye because of its resemblance to a pinecone, so she placed a pinecone in the frame.

A seed was planted, and Purcell has since shot hundreds of photos at the MCZ alone — thousands more in her wide-ranging career. Purcell is speaking Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Harvard Museum of Natural History about the MCZ’s role in her evolution as an artist

Most of Purcell’s first photographs in the mid-70s were portraits of friends. Looking for a challenge, she wondered what would happen if she took photos of subjects she disliked or feared. Enter the MCZ. “I thought if I focused my lens on something that really gives me the creeps, I’d be getting somewhere.”

Preserved pangolin next to a pinecone.

Her eye for the surreal poetry of decay and startling visual analogies has earned her acclaim. Her work has been displayed in science and art museums all over the world and recently she was the subject of a documentary, “An Art That Nature Makes.” She has written or illustrated some 20 books, three of which grew out of her 17-year collaboration with the late Harvard evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould.

“He gave a scientific legitimacy to things I was looking at as evocative images,” Purcell said, noting Gould often described their collaboration as “backwards.” Usually a scientist commissions an artist — “draw this or take a photo of that” — but Gould wrote text explaining the scientific principles underlying Purcell’s photographs.

What follows is a small sample of Purcell’s photographs, many captured at the MCZ. Most are taken from her first book with Gould, “Illuminations: A Bestiary.” With one exception, the quotes that describe them are Purcell’s.

Crocodile jaw and shadow of its teeth.
Stuffed monkeys, arms outstretched.
Fish bones placed on top of termite-damaged book.

 

Cane toad in jar.
Stuffed penguin.

Preserved chameleon with translucent skin.

 

Fish fossil.

Bat submerged in glycerin.

 

 

Rosamond Purcell.

Purcell is a Cambridge native who works out of Brickbottom studios in Somerville. She is currently collaborating on a project examining presidential hair.

Up
Next

Arts & Humanities

A detailed narrative of Rome

Joseph Connors, professor of history of art and architecture, took listeners on a virtual tour of two of Rome’s most iconic spaces, the Piazza Navona and the Piazza San Pietro. Danielle Carrabino, an associate research curator in European Art at the Harvard Art Museums, assisted Connors on the exhibit.

Arts & Humanities

A detailed narrative of Rome

Joseph Connors, professor of history of art and architecture, took listeners on a virtual tour of two of Rome’s most iconic spaces, the Piazza Navona and the Piazza San Pietro. Danielle Carrabino, an associate research curator in European Art at the Harvard Art Museums, assisted Connors on the exhibit.

Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer