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Portland Zoological Gardens Unveils Traveling Museum ShowPortland's colony of chimpanzees--already famous for their grasp of American Sign Language and for their colorful and fast-selling paintings--are about to hit the big time once again. This time their vehicle is a traveling museum exhibit. When the chimps' paintings received national attention in 1974, the zoo began getting requests to exhibit their works. It was then that Dr. Philip Ogilvie, director of the zoo, decided that a chimp-related exhibit was a good idea, but not an exhibit limited to the paintings."Instead," he says, "it seemed to me that an exhibit suitable for display in museums of natural history--emphasizing captive boredom and the resulting need for enrichment--would have both a broader appeal and greater impact." The exhibit is titled, "Children, behold the Chimpanzee," from British poet Oliver Herford. It consists of seventeen silk screened acrylic panels developed by Lucie Wisdom, former supervisor of the PZG Chimpanzee Enrichment Project. The panels were designed by Bill McCabe, graphic designer for the zoo, and fabricated in the zoo by McCabe with assistant Eric Haag. The shows message: That the chimpanzee ia a wildlife form, one with which man has enjoyed a long association. And that through the chimpanzee, man has learned much--accurately and inaccurately--and still has much to learn. Panel 1 (shown above) quotes British diarest Samuel Pepys in 1661: . . . "it is a great baboone, but so like a man in most things, that (though they say there is a Species of them) yet I cannot believe but that it is a monster got of a man and a she baboone. I do believe it already understands much english, and I am of the mind it might be taught to speak or make signs."
Judy Spanagle. "Portland Zoological Gardens Unveils Traveling Museum Show" PZG newsletter, Volume 4, Number 4 (May/June 1975), pp. 2 and 5
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