Sunday 8 October 2017

murder was her hobby: the nutshell studies

Via the always brilliant Nag on the Lake we find ourselves rather taken with these detailed, macabre dioramas produced in the 1940s and 1950s by smart and crafty lady Frances Glessner Lee—who being denied the chance to study criminal sciences herself became a sort of den mother for aspiring Harvard medical examiners and made immeasurable contributions to modern forensic science. Each of her miniature crime scenes were based on real, sometimes unsolved cases and contained a multitude of clues and evidence to cull and work out how the murder was committed.
An investigator-in-training examining one of the Nutshell Studies for the first time would not necessarily know what to look for and where the significant clues lie but the intricate little tragedies who hopefully keep him engaged and thinking critically and maybe learn to appreciate how everything may not be what it seems and that everything was not an open-and-shut case. Be sure and visit the links above to see more of the dioramas and find out details for their upcoming exhibition.