The Morven Museum and Garden will be exhibiting seven Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins paintings from Princeton University's Campus Collections in their exhibition "Rocks & Dinos!" opening on October 31. Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (1808-1894) created the world's first life-size models of dinosaurs for London's Crystal Palace Park in 1852, and later, for natural history exhibits in New York and Philadelphia. Hawkins arrived in Princeton in the early 1870s to lecture on Paleontology at the request of Arnold Guyot, and in 1874 was awarded an honorary degree for his service to the college. Two years later he was commissioned by President McCosh to create 17 scenes of prehistoric life and geology for the Elizabeth Marsh Museum of Geology and Archaeology located in what is now the Faculty Room at Nassau Hall. Of the original 17, only 15 survive. In 1909, his paintings were installed in the corridors of the newly built Guyot Hall and by 2001 all had been removed for storage and safe-keeping at the Princeton University Art Museum.

These paintings are representative of Hawkins' scientific acumen and rich imagination that played a pivotal role in helping to popularize science in the 19th century.

See the Morven Museum and Garden Website for details of the exhibition.

Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, British, 1807 - 1894
Attack in Pleistocene England
Oil on canvas
80.3 x 157.5 cm. (31 5/8 x 62 in.)
Princeton University, Department of Geosciences, Guyot Hall.