This is one of the most interesting snippets of paleo-connections that I’ve come across in my research for Famous Fossils, Hidden Histories. Celebrated artist, Charles Knight, meets prominent paleoanthropologist, Dr. Robert Broom.
A detail from Charles R. Knight’s giant mural “The Flint Workers of the River Vezere,” from 1920. The painting of a Neanderthal family shows a scene at Le Moustier cave in southern France. (Bones of Neanderthals and stone artifacts were found in 1909.)
When Dr. Robert Broom, the renowned paleontologist, arrived in New York from the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria, South Africa, I was allowed to sit between him and Toppy [Charles K. Knight] in a large limousine, as my grandfather accompanied Broom to a radio studio.
Broom was then in his eighties, making his first trip to the United States. He later wrote to me from Africa with an invitation for Toppy and me to visit him. Sadly, my parents felt that I was too young at five to travel to the other side of the world without them. Was I angry!
“Remembering ‘Toppy,’ My Grandfather” by Rhoda Knight Kalt, pp. pp. 7
Charles R. Knight: The Artist Who Saw Through Time
Abrans, New York 2012