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Neave Parker (1910-1961) Although Neave Parker (1910-1961) had artistic ambitions from an early age, he was forbidden by his father to pursue them and was not allowed to attend art school. Instead, he took up employment in a bank but, after just one disastrous week, he was firmly but kindly advised to seek another profession. Parker commented: 'each day there was an error in the books, and the whole staff had to stay behind until the error was found. It always ended with me.' He then worked as a surveyor for a short while before going on to serve in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, working in the Photographic Unit. It was not until Parker was discharged that he finally was able to pursue art as a career. After making the acquaintance of Maurice Burton, a scientific associate at the Natural History Museum and also honorary science editor at the Illustrated London News, he began collaboration with Burton to produce animal illustrations for a non-technical audience. The first of his drawings of prehistoric animals appeared in the Illustrated London News on 30 September 1950. Burton then introduced Parker to William Elgin Swinton (1900-1994), palaeontologist at the Museum. Together they produced a series of reconstructions of Mesozoic vertebrates that accompanied articles in the Illustrated London News. Of particular note were a series of Jurassic and Cretaceous animals which appeared between 1956 and 1960, which were later incorporated into Swinton's book, The Dinosaurs (1970). Parker also drew for Edwin Colbert for his book, Dinosaurs, Their Discovery and Their World (1962). In addition to this, a series of dinosaur reconstructions were also commissioned by the Natural History Museum for their picture postcard series. Parker's other passions in life were food and beer, pistol shooting (he was a British Open Champion), photography and films. It was in a cinema that he suffered a fatal heart attack in 1961.
This striking image, painted in black, white and grey tones, portrays the Iguanodon as a formidable creature. Neave depicts the dinosaur in an upright pose; this is now known to be an incorrect representation.
Iguanodon was one of the first dinosaurs to be discovered and to be studied. Teeth and a thumb-like spike were found by Sussex doctor Gideon Mantell in 1825 on the South Downs, and the dinosaur was thought to resemble the herbivorous iguana as can be seen in his reconstruction. The spike was placed on the nose like a horn. Iguanodon was one of the three fossil reptiles in Richard Owen's description of Dinosauria. The artist Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, under Owen's direction, drew and modelled Iguanodon, not with the lizard like frame of Mantell's but as a large lumbering creature walking on all fours; however he kept the spike firmly on the nose. In the 150 years since Iguanodon's discovery, our perception of it has changed as the knowledge of dinosaurs has grown. By the latter part of the nineteenth century, dinosaurs were considered more bird-like, particularly with the discoveries of complete skeletons of Iguanodon in Belgian coalmines. French palaeontologist Louis Dollo (1857-1931) studied not one but thirty of these. Dollo's Iguanodon, however, stood up and resembled a kangaroo with a rigid tail. Dollo also placed the spike on the thumb as he believed that it was used as a weapon rather than being ornamental. This view was held until the 1980s when it was observed that in order to maintain an upright pose the tail of Iguanodon would have to be broken. The current concept is that it walked on four legs with a horizontal back and the tail held as a counterbalance. Alternatively it could walk with back legs alone.
The Neave Parker Drawings Collection The museum has 19 dinosaur reconstructions, drawn by Neave Parker for a series of picture postcards.
Exhibition and publication details Neave Parker's drawings made for the Illustrated London News were exhibited and sold in the 1970s. The Ulster Museum acquired some drawings in 1989 and these were the subject of an exhibition: The Prehistoric World of Neave Parker, July - September 1993. BM(NH) Dinosaur picture postcard series (out of print). Colbert, E. H. (1962) Dinosaurs: Their Discovery and Their World. E.P. Dutton: New York. 300pp. Swinton, W. E. (1970) The Dinosaurs. George Allen & Unwin: London. 331pp.
References and further reading Debus, A. A. (1987) Neave Parker - vertebrate palaeontology's masterful necromancer. Earth Science News, Vol.38, no.11, p.21-24. |
