Please join us for "Plausible Deep Time Landscapes and the Art of Paleoart" with Kirk Johnson, the Sant Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. This lecture is presented in conjunction with Art, Ecology, and the Resilience of a Maine Island: The Monhegan Wildlands, on view at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art through June 1, 2025.

Through the lens of time, any place has been many places. The human eye is tuned to see animals as individuals and plants as background and the result is that many expressions of paleoart are biased toward the animals and not the places. This creates a false sense that we understand past landscapes. For the last several decades, Kirk Johnson has been collaborating with artists to imagine and render specific animals, plants, and places as they would have appeared millions of years ago.

Kirk Johnson is the Sant Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History where he oversees the world’s largest natural history collection. Before his arrival at the Smithsonian in 2012, Johnson was a paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science who led expeditions in 18 states and 11 countries. His research focuses on fossil plants and the extinction of the dinosaurs. In 2011, he led an ice age excavation near Snowmass Village in Colorado that recovered parts of more than 50 mastodon skeletons. He is known for his scientific articles, popular books, museum exhibitions, documentaries and collaborations with artists.

This event is free and open to the public. No registration is required. Presented by the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in collaboration with the Monhegan Museum of Art & History.

Photo Credit: Forrest Gibson