The Artful Zoo

THE ARTFUL ZOO

By Milo Duke

The Saint Louis Zoo has many wonderful attractions including one that is a beautifully integrated example of art, architecture and modern zoo keeping practice—the Charles H. Hoessle Herpetarium. This building, a charming example of Mediterranean style architecture built in 1927 and located on Historic Hill, is home to the zoo's reptiles. The exhibits, arranged around a sunlit atrium, are glass fronted enclosures featuring naturalistic habitat dioramas and spectacular murals that demonstrate what the art of painting can do in some unexpected ways.

The murals throughout the Herpetarium are by Patrick Weck, who says “I want both animals and humans to feel like they are in the animals’ natural habitat.” He includes features intended to excite the animals, with some intriguing indications of success. The black mamba has been observed by the keepers trying to climb on painted branches. The rainy Caribbean habitat of the mountain chicken frog has been so successfully reproduced by a thoughtful collaboration of artist and keeper that the twice daily multi-media thunderstorm causes an enthusiastic amphibian response every time.

As for human response to the work, as you stand in the atrium, you will notice that, through what appears to be a window, the Sonoran desert recedes majestically into a mountain-strewn distance. It is an enticing vista that draws you close enough to observe the Gila monsters and spiny-tailed iguanas snuggled up to the glass right in front, lying low. Weck's trees are so well painted that one can understand the black mamba's confusion. Dense tropical undergrowth relentlessly realized, beautiful cloud effects over distant mountain ranges, rocks and flowers and mushrooms; all these the artist brings to delight the human eye. A tour through the Herpetarium is a tour through many beautifully painted parts of the world; a seamless integration of landscape painting and 3-D foreground staging for reptile theater.

Patrick Weck, McCord’s Box Turtle Habitat, Saint Louis Zoo, detail (image courtesy of the artist)

Patrick Weck, Jamaican Iguana Habitat, Saint Louis Zoo, (image courtesy of the artist)

This all came to be as a result of a 9” x 12” watercolor of a hellbender salamander that the then 22 year old artist painted as a Father's Day present for his dad, a biology professor at Southwestern Illinois College. His dad was so taken with the painting that he showed it to his professional acquaintance Mark Wanner, the manager of the Herpetarium. The hellbender, a Missouri native, is a state endangered species and the subject of a successful Saint Louis Zoo breeding program. Impressed by the small painting, Wanner asked the artist to paint murals. Amazingly, the young artist's talent was up to the quantum leap from notebook to room-sized murals, and now five years later there are 15 paintings in the Herpetarium, three in the Primate House and one in the Bird House. And the work continues.

Many of the animals Weck painted within the habitat murals are endangered or threatened because of humans’ destruction of the environment. He hopes that by reminding visitors of the beauty and diversity that still exists in nature, he can inspire greater social action and respect for wildlife within future generations. In his latest mural for the McCord’s box turtle from southern China, he included scenes of deforestation and signs of human destruction as a reminder to visitors that this turtle is nearly extinct in the wild due to human activity.

The zoo is not where one expects to encounter fine art, but Patrick Weck's landscape murals are so fine that the animals and the human visitors alike are delighted and transported by the conviction and beauty of the work.

www.stlzoo.org

COMMUNITY VOICES WINTER 2018/19 ALLTHEARTSTL.COM