I was fascinated by dinosaurs,
and
went hunting on the Isle of
Sheppey for sharks teeth amongst other prehistoric treasures, but only
recently have I come across the term 'paleoart' without
paleoartists, dinosaurs remain an assemblage of bones in the popular
imagination, but despite a global fascination with dinosaurs, paleoart
collecting was, and remains, rare,
but then
along came John Lanzendorf, 69, a hairdresser to the stars
and unparalleled collector of dino art, he is a hairstylist who
has coiffed Chicago’s socialites for 51 years, He’s styled Rita Hayworth,
Raquel Welch, Angela Lansbury and other celebrities, He is also an obsessive
collector who amassed a staggeringly vast portfolio of dinosaur
art, once, his 1,250 square foot Chicago apartment was the Louvre of
Terrible Lizards, busts of long-necked Shunosaurus and Dicraeosaurus looked
down upon massive sculptures of Tyrannosaurus rex and Stegosaurus, bronzes of
Dimetrodon and Triceratops commanded tabletops and floors, His collection
roamed into every room, even without a formal education, Lanzendorf became
something of a dinosaur expert, reading everything that he could get his hands
on, He attended conferences, the renowned Canadian paleontologist Philip J.
Currie invited him to a dig in Alberta, (Currie would later pen the
introduction to a book about the collection, Dinosaur
Imagery.) eventually, museums began noticing his work, the first time
the Lanzendorf Collection was displayed to the public was in 2000, as part of
the Field Museum’s heralded unveiling of Sue, the largest and most complete T.
rex skeleton ever discovered, meanwhile, dinosaurs were taking over
Lanzendorf’s apartment,
it was around
this time The Children’s Museum
of Indianapolis came calling, “When I first met John, he’s got a one
bedroom apartment in downtown Chicago and it was wall-to-wall art,” says Dallas
Evans, Lead Curator of Natural Science and Paleontology at museum, “You’d look
at a wall and there’d be framed artwork, an inch to spare, and another artwork
right beneath it, taking up the entire wall, in fact all the walls of the
house, even in the bathroom.” the museum wanted Lanzendorf’s collection for
their Dinosphere,
in 2001, they invited him on a trip to inner Mongolia, Evans and Lanzendorf
toured around the fossil-rich country, visiting digs, Lanzendorf
does miss his dinosaurs, but his legacy in the paleoart world is cemented, once
a year the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology awards the John J. Lanzendorf
PaleoArt Prize to artists in three different categories, “I’ve
always liked unusual things,” says Lanzendorf, who still works four days a week
as a hairstylist, “I think I might go into dog art,” he says. “It’s become
very popular in galleries on Madison Avenue.” from a childhood fascination to an all encompassing hobby and all self taught.
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