Bernard N. Ippolito
The Artist

(The information here was gleaned from sources and friends close to Benny as well as from Benny himself. Also included, with my grateful thanks are, Laura Ippolito … Benny’s wife … John Janelli taxidermist of Union City New Jersey. In the wings supplying additional information are Louis Paul Jonas’s daughter Zella and yours truly.)

Everyone in our industry is aware that there was a Jonas Brother’s Taxidermy Studio in Denver, Colorado on Broadway. There are not many people around today that are aware or even remember that there was a Jonas Brothers Studio in Mount Vernon, New York. The location was hardly more than a stone’s throw from the New York City line.

Among the founders and original inhabitants of that venerable studio at 135 North High Street were none other than John Jonas, Leslie Jonas and Louis Paul Jonas. They took what had been built as a wood framed and masonry church nearly 100 years earlier and made it into one of the most reputable of taxidermy emporiums. The building even had a belfry … that edifice and it inhabitants will enter into this essay shortly … stay tuned.

A masterful reproduction of an African Elephant head mounted for George Eastman of Eastman / Kodak fame, dominated the main show room and display area. Show business luminaries of the time, such as Arthur “Buy ‘em by the Carton” Godfrey, sent their trophies there and visited as well. The late Fred Bear had many of his trophies prepared and mounted at the Mt. Vernon Studio. The clientele came from all walks of life. Not the least of which included Elgin Gates, Jack O’Connor, and Theodore Roosevelt V!

Benny Ippolito saw and met many of them. Should you ever get to visit the Fred Bear Museum in Gainesville, Florida … you will see some of the marvelous life size mounts that Benny produced!

When I joined the staff, my assigned workbench was just across the small multi-purpose room from Benny’s. (Thank goodness for that! When I found myself IN over my head at times, with projects assigned by the then owner, Steve Horn … Benny jumped in and pulled my chestnuts out of the fire!) What I thought I knew about taxidermy, in reality could fill a thimble. What I did not know could fill a dump truck. (I know that the boss thought that some of my work belonged in a dump truck and on one such occasion went so far as to take out his pocket knife and opened the seam on a Caribou that I had just stitched and told me, “Do it again and do it right!” He walked away without explaining what “right,” meant to him. I was crushed and embarrassed …

Benny quickly stepped forward and helped me over come my “Peter Principle” and helped keep me out of trouble with the boss! I learned quickly and learned too that Benny was as good a friend as anyone could ask for.

He had begun his association with the Mt. Vernon Jonas establishment early on. ‘Early on’ means he first visited at age seven in 1946. He had found the place and “hung around” as often as he could by age twelve. For any youngster with an artistic bent and a love of wildlife that magnificent place was nothing short of Mecca!

As time went on it was determined that young Benny had what it took to become a fine taxidermist, worthy of the Jonas Bros. label on his work. Louis Paul took the added time and effort to teach Benny the fine art of sculpting. Louis was a past master and his myriads of “Miniatures” are mute testimony to his awesome skills. Today, Benny is his equal. The pictures accompanying this article will give proof positive of that! His work as advertised in a recent SCI magazine was to prove impossible, even for a Jonas family member to identify … as anything other than a Louis Paul creation! What had been assumed to be a Louis Paul original of the infamous “Suicide Sam” rogue elephant … was indeed none other than one of Benny (Bernard) Ippolito’s unique creations! Mute testimony to his teacher. And here please let me state unequivocally … Benny is NOT a copycat artist! His creations stand as masterfully as any artwork ever could! He is his own artist and wild life master!

How marvelous must it have been for a young man to work elbow to elbow with and learn from none other than the renowned Louis Paul Jonas? I had met the man myself during my tenure at the Mt. Vernon Jonas studio and again at his Hudson New York studio. To my eye he was the epitome of the mannerly and very dapper European gentleman! Mr. Jonas with his neatly trimmed moustache was a striking figure. I had the great pleasure to visit his aircraft hanger sized facility when he and his staff were designing and manufacturing the 1960’s Long Island World’s Fair, life size animated dinosaurs for the Sinclair Oil company! (Animated creations long before Disney coined the term “Animatronics”.) I mention this to illustrate how awesome it was simply to be in the company of this inspiring personage! Benny is well aware of how fortunate he was at having his long association with Louis Paul and with John as well as Leslie Jonas.

Now let me take a moment and tell you about some of Benny’s formative years at the Mt. Vernon Studio. Like many of us interested in wild life, he had a fascination with bats. It may have been from the fact that the former church had bats in the belfry! (Lots of bats in fact.) Benny got the notion that he’d climb up there and see them first hand and close up.

No one had been up inside the belfry in years as best as anyone could remember. Many years as it turned out. He climbed up with a flashlight to have a look see. Unfortunately at the most critical point of observation the flashlight conked out! Even though everything surrounding him was coated in what may have been 100 years of dust and grime Benny was not about to be deterred.

He fished around in his pockets and found a pack of matches! Bingo, strike a match and … ? Fortunately the matches would not light. If they had, with the volumes of dislodged dust in the air, Benny may have been launched into orbit well before John Glenn tried it, or at least sent flying to the Bronx River Parkway a mile away. (Him along with the building’s roof!) The effect would have been like a grain or flour silo explosion. That is not an unheard of occurrence in the Midwest when a spark of static electricity ignites the dust in the air. The result is like a bomb going off … a very large bomb at that!

When he climbed down again, he was covered head to toe in the thick grime and dust. Benny was soundly chastised when it was discovered what he had attempted.

When I joined the Jonas crew there were about eleven or twelve full and part time staff employed there. Among them were no less than master tanner Sinclair Clark and a Swiss gentleman, Mr. Walter Hofer, manning the fur dressing plant at the rear of the building.

Wes Riday (a superbly talented small mammal and bird specialist) and Frank Morgenweck were taxidermists there as well as Benny. Several women handled the rug work and there was a full time secretary, Annabelle, in the front office. A Mrs. Connolly handled the finishing artwork on most of the mounts. She was also the company political rascal. Mrs. Connolly would argue the merits of being a dyed in the wool Democrat at the drop of a hat … if it took that much provocation! When she retired, her replacement was Tedi Castle. All in all the Mt. Vernon Jonas Brothers Studio was a going concern with Steve Horn at the helm. And filled with the most delightful cast of characters that anyone could hope to work with!

Our lunches spent around the small kitchen table were often the source of much amusement and laughter! Later on Manfred Breuers joined the motley crew. He hailed from Wiesbaden, Germany and arrived on the doorstep after having traveled the world by hitch hiking and shoe leather express! To us he was simply and very affectionately known as “Freddy”.

For all intents and purposes Benny was always assumed to be the senior taxidermist on site right after Steve Horn, the owner. Benny had been there longer than any of us and was better than all of us at his art. I have never known anyone that could stitch and close a seam on a mount faster and more neatly than he could. When he was done with even the shortest hair mount … the seam was virtually nonexistent. Benny’s fingers flew while I watched incredulously! I have tried but never mastered his speed or consistent accuracy. Manfred Breuers was about the closest in speed! Far faster than I am!

A word about the late Steve Horn … the article would be sorely remiss by not including him here. (Isn’t his a marvelous name for a taxidermist?) For many years Steve was Benny’s one on one mentor, employer and friend. “Steve” to all that knew and worked for him … learned the art from people such as M.J. Hoffman of Brooklyn, New York and the Jonas’. He became ensconced in the industry shortly after his return from the Army and World War II. When John Jonas died Steve and his wife Eleanor bought Jonas Bros. Inc., of Mt Vernon from John’s widow. They kept the name and kept the business alive!

Benny feels and I must agree from personal experience that not only was Steve Horn a master at taxidermy … he was a master at figuring the mechanics of the art! At a time when there were few books except for those of ancient vintage (certainly no video tapes) to use as guides through some of the ever present taxidermy mine fields, Steve could look at a job and visualize what was required to make it work … even if no one else had ever tried a given procedure! Many of the projects that he undertook were massive and complex. Special construction techniques frequently had to be developed from scratch. That was a part of his talented forte!

To facilitate those projects, Steve learned welding among other unique skills and he could weld anything that needed it. Bronze, iron & steel, brass, copper and pewter were frequently welded items in the studio. Some of the welding was done for the strength required or simply for the cosmetic effects needed to cap a pair of Elephant ivories or finish a set of Warthog ivory bar tools. Benny learned from him, as did I. If Steve Horn could not figure out how to do it … then it wasn’t worth doing!

From their long association numerous skills were developed … not the least of which is that Benny also has the ability to make the proverbial silk purse from a sow’s ear! When approached by Steve about the chances for mounting a life size ram of exotic Asian origins … a specimen with much of the tattered face literally missing, Benny tackled the project! Using scraps gleaned from the hide, Benny reconstructed the face to total accuracy and the delight of Steve and the client! For him the job was not an obstacle but a challenge to be met and overcome! I have watched him masterfully deal with many such onerous tasks.

If it couldn’t be done … Benny knew it COULD and acted accordingly!

He served a stint in the Army as a Paratrooper and then settled into Jonas Brothers again after his return. (I don’t know why anyone would want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane … Benny did and had fun at it!)

During his long tenure at Jonas Bros., Benny produced many incredibly beautiful mounts … and some masterful sculpted miniatures, mostly for his own amusement. Very often after a day’s work he would use his own time to work in Plasteline clay … I had no place special to go at that hour and often hung around and watched. (I had met the dapper Louis Paul Jonas at his Hudson New York facility and again at the Mt. Vernon Studio, as mentioned. My time, after hours, spent with Benny was like watching Louis Paul, sculpting by proxy! Benny is that good and then some! He learned from the finest wild life sculptor ever!)

He also had a demonstrable flair for mounting life size specimens with hand wrapped forms. Often called “direct modeling” by our antecedents. (Shades of the late great George H. Lesser!) Benny had gone on a hunting trip to then British Honduras. When he returned weeks later than was expected, (Much to Steve’s chagrin) he had a magnificent Jaguar skin from his hunting expedition. He had shot a cat that I would estimate weighed about 150 lbs or perhaps a little larger. With no scale to use in the field, the weight is an educated guess.

Benny and Steve Horn along with the world-renowned fur dresser Sinclair Clark personally dressed the skin at 135 N. High Street in the facility’s small but very well appointed and efficient tannery.

From there, Benny painstakingly constructed a wrapped form and the tanned hide was fitted to it and visa versa. (See the photos here.) I had the good fortune to witness the designing and assembly of that Jaguar. Of all of the commercially available forms that he could have used … this mount needed Benny’s personal touch. It was after all, a trophy of a lifetime, not something to be taken lightly or given over to someone else’s idea as to what a Jaguar, his Jaguar, should look like. Hence the masterfully produced wrapped form and the resulting finished mount!

It was then, and still is to my way of thinking, the finest, most accurate Jaguar mount I have ever seen. It is a simple, uncomplicated design that when you look at its understated beauty … it breathes! Yes, it still hangs on Benny and Laura Ann’s wall, looking as good as the day it was completed.

A bit of additional bio on that cat: Nose to tail tip, it measures 74 inches. Girth is 36 inches.

The designing and wrapping of the form took 3 days. (Soaking it with shellac firmed the fine wood-wool core up.) Lay up resin was used on the manikin later for additional strength. Soft putty was used to highlight the musculature. The mounting and assembly was done in one day. (I told you that Benny is FAST!)

He is as comfortable with wrapping a form as with using foam or even its forerunner hollow laminated “paper forms”. I have watched him take a red rosin paper form and alter it to such an extent as to make it impossible to tell what the original pose had been. When the job was done it was a 100% custom made mount! The entire alteration may have required 100 or more cuts to get it to what Benny wanted from it. He’d add or subtract materials as needed. When urethane foam became commercially available that was often used to fill the voids in the altered paper forms and then shaved down to match and blend with and strengthen the rest of the job. Voila! Simple isn’t it? It is when you have the kind of talent and enthusiasm that Benny has!

Benny went to college and learned animal husbandry and the Black Smith’s trade. He eventually went on to practice that in the lower tier of New York State shoeing horses. It served then and now as an adjunct to his other talents.

Today Benny works on clay miniatures, generally in 1/7th to 1/8th scale … (again see the photos that accompany this article.) Unlike his long ago mentor, Benny is not interested in mass-producing his work. His main ambition and efforts are geared towards custom created works of wildlife art for a client’s special requests. One of a kind, wildlife miniatures are what he is shooting for of late!

Look closely at the photographs supplied by Benny and his wife Laura. The details are incredibly accurate. One can almost expect to see the creations drawing a breath and then walking out of the frame.

Bernard’s clay art works are molded with a finely applied molding material to pick up the detail and then a more substantial “jacket” is applied over that for strength. The final casts are then poured from top grade permanent casting resins.

Exclusively his own hands do every bit of Benny’s creations from start to finish. There are no middlemen, foundries or sub contractors involved. What a client receives from him is 100% Benny’s works!

From experience Benny has learned that bronze casts for smooth textured items such as the human form are best cast that way if that is what the artist or client wishes. Those are easy enough to remove the mold flashings and inherent flaws from the cast and blend the mold seams. Not so easily done with complex and detailed wildlife creations.

Often in the bronze molding and casting process gas bubbles will be trapped at the surface of the bronze. Those can leave voids and holidays on the surface of the finished piece and are next to impossible to repair and restore the original intricate texture to the surface. At best the restoration is terribly tedious.

More problems for the artist can occur when the molten bronze is not absolutely pure before being poured. Even the slightest of foreign matter can cause troublesome imperfections on the surface of the finished piece.

To avoid the problems of finishing a less than perfect piece Benny tends to stick with the tried and true. I am sure that if a client insists on a cast bronze … he will tackle it … though his pleasure and preference is with the materials that he knows will work the first time around! He uses reliable recourses that will please the client before all else.

Sadly, many of Louis Paul Jonas’ miniatures had been poured using ‘casting latex’ for the pieces. Those were hand colored and made spectacular well detailed reproductions. However, what was not known at the time is that the hard rubber material had a life span … it is not permanent. Today, many of those items are now deteriorating and turning to a chalky, crumbling powder. Benny has been asked to restore one of those by a client and did so successfully. (Though not without effort and diligence.) Yet, he did salvage one of Louis Paul’s irreplaceable miniatures for the patron.

Unlike those of his mentor Benny’s miniatures will last forever using his chosen casting materials.

Today Benny and Laura Ippolito reside and work in Crossville, Tennessee. To contact him for more information about his creations he may be reached via E-mail at:

benippolito@frontiernet.net

His mailing address is:
226 Frazier Lane
Crossville, Tenn. 38572
He may be reached by phone at: (931) 788-1883

 

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