HISTORY

Henry Wichers Inchumuk

The inchumuk Museum Collection
by Joe Kish

Special thanks goes to Mark McLain of Research Mannikins for providing the bulk of photos for this article.

IN 1993 RESEARCH MANNIKINS ACQUIRED A LARGE collection of plaster molds from the Denver Museum of Natural History, the only collection of its kind ever offered to the commercial taxidermy industry.

Along with the molds they received exclusive rights to reproduce and sell the mannikins from that collection. Mike Frazier, chief sculptor for Research, made faithful copies from the molds, which Research subsequently remolded in polyester and fiberglass to produce urethane mannikins. Research has been selling them ever since.

The collection is almost exclusively North American and African lifesize models sculpted by the Denver Museum's illustrious sculptor and chief taxidermist Henry Wichers Inchumuk. Other models include superbly sculpted pieces by Dennis McElvain (sika blacktail) and Tom Shankster (zebra).

This magnificent collection represents a significant portion of the total body of work by Henry Inchumuk at the height of his powers. This was during the time he filled the museum's dioramas and habitat exhibits with superb specimens of taxidermy. That the work of the world's most famous living museum taxidermist could become...

...Continued in the Winter 2002 Issue of Breakthrough.

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