MAJOR SETON EXHIBITION IN SANTA FE OPENS MAY 23

Opening May 23 at the New Mexico History Museum, Wild at Heart: Ernest Thompson Seton dedicates itself to telling the often overlooked story of the conservationist, author, artist, lecturer and co-founder of the Boy Scouts of America. Ernest Thompson Seton’s impact on America’s conservation movement was immeasurable but, today is largely forgotten. Wild at Heart: Ernest Thompson Seton sets out to change that.

The exhibition will run  through May 8, 2011 in the museum’s second-floor Albert and Ethel Herzstein Changing Exhibitions Gallery. It's accompanied by a catalog, Ernest Thompson Seton, The Life and Legacy of an Artist and Conservationist (Gibbs Smith, Publisher, 2010), with a foreword written by Sir David Attenborough.

Curated by New Mexico art historian David L. Witt, director of the Seton Legacy Project for the Academy for the Love of Learning in Santa Fe, Wild at Heart marks the first major exhibition about Seton. Most of the art and artifacts – more than 30 original paintings and drawings by Seton, books, personal memorabilia, and photographs – have been seldom if ever seen. Most of the items on loan to the exhibit come from the Academy for the Love of Learning and from the Philmont Museum and Seton Memorial Library at the Philmont Ranch in Cimarron, N.M.

Click here for the full press release.