Charles R. Knight (1874-1953) was among the first artists to give life to dinosaurs and other extinct creatures through painting. His artwork graces the walls of major museums around the US, including the Science Museum of Minnesota. Our Charles Knight is a “sketch” of oil on canvas that Knight used as a guide in constructing a mosaic in the Reptile House of the US National Zoo in Washington D. C. It was painted in 1930, and given to the Science Museum in the early 1970s.

Charles Knight’s paintings helped bring dinosaurs to life for me when I was a kid. Though many of his paintings depict the old view of slow, dimwitted dinosaurs, he sometimes portrayed the animals in dramatically active poses, at times when such an active view of dinosaurs was outside the norm.
– Kristi Curry Rogers, Curator of Paleontology