ELSE BOSTELMANN: DEEP SEA ILLUSTRATOR
UNTIL THE EARLY 1930s, life deep below the ocean’s surface was a mystery to science. Unlike today, there were no deep-diving robotic vehicles roaming the bottom of the sea mounted with high-tech digital cameras. Underwater photography at the time couldn’t capture images of deep-sea animals or their habitats. It was up to a scientific illustrator named Else Bostelmann to reveal in her art the strange, glow-in-the-dark inhabitants of this mysterious realm. Her haunting images of weird creatures, such as the silver hatchet fish with its telescopic eyes and the terrifying viper fish with fanglike teeth actively engulfing prey, gave scientists, and an amazed general public, a first glimpse into this hidden world that many found almost unbelievable.
Born in
