MUSEUM CLASSES END

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 104, 27 January 1938, Page 13

MUSEUM CLASSES END

Californian Expert To Leave To-day DIORAMA COMPLETED His work in New Zealand completed,, Mr. Frank Tose, Californian expert in the preparation of museum exhibits, is to leave Wellington to-day to return to the United States. Ils has visited every important museum in New Zealand, ami has given a twomouth course of Instruction at the Dominion Museum to officials from other institutions all over the Dominion. interviewed yesterday, when he held his last class in Wellington, Mr. Tose said that he bad great hope for New Zealand museums. T'be work that was being done was excellent, and he was well satified with the work of his class. The members or it had been extremely keen and quick to learn, and be thought that they would develop into most able “museum preparators.” Mr. Tose said that he had explained to them the whole of the broad principles applicable to the preparation of any exhibit, and these principles they would learn for themselves to apply to individual requirements and to New Zealand’s specialised needs. Yesterday the class completed the first of the dioramas illustrating phases of natural history on which they have been working for the last two months. In this diorama was summed up the whole of the basic theory that Mr. Tose has come to instil into New Zealand museum technique. The subject represented a group of sea-lious in their natural surroundings on a rocky shore, and because in the limited time and with the .resources at their disposal it was impossible to prepare a full-sized exhibit, the diorajna was a miniature scale model, with accurately modelled and coloured casts taking the place of the actual mounted specimens that would otherwise be used. The diorama showed bull, cow and calf sea-lions in characteristic pose on a rock-bound beaclj. with rock-hopper penguins close at hand, and in the background a vista of breakers falling at the feet of granite cliffs. Into this small scene has been put the whole of the technique, artistry and skill needed to produce a full size diorama. Tiie mounting of a full-size peccary, and the making of wax leaves and foliage, and other accessories have accustomed the class to other aspects of the work. Mr. Tose is to leave this afternoon for Napier, Rotorua and Waitomo, and will leave Auckland on February 7 by the Monterey for Honolulu.