The Age of Reptiles (1947)

Perhaps Zallinger's most well-known piece of art, The Age of Reptiles is a 110 feet (34 meters) wide by 16 feet (4.9 meters) tall mural, occupying the full length of the east wall of the Yale Peabody Museum's Great Hall. It was painted from 1943 to 1947, with the help of a 6-month crash course in animal and plant life of the distant past and comparative anatomy with Yale's professors. Such professors include Carl Owen Dunbar (the Director of the Peabody Museum at Yale University, 1942–1959), Richard Swann Lull, G. Edward Lewis, and George Wieland.^[7] It features a timeline of 350 million years of animal and plant evolution, showing the rise and fall of dinosaurs as the rulers of Earth. Zallinger used trees to divide it into the various periods of geologic time, as the chronology moves from right to left. This was later reversed when used in the Life Magazine to go from left to right in 1952.

The museum's Great Hall had the fossil reconstructions of various dinosaurs, including that of an Apatosaurus with an incorrect skull.^[7] However, the wall looked too empty for oceanographer and director of the Peabody Museum of Natural History (1938–1942), Albert Eide Parr. He wanted to make a series of small paintings on the East wall, depicting what those skeletons would have looked like. In 1941, Parr decided to put the task to Zallinger, a student at Yale University at the time who had been painting marine algae for him.^[8][9] Lewis York, an art professor at the School of Fine Arts, also suggested that Zallinger would be up to the task.^[7] Along with this, his wife is quoted as saying:

"We were in the art school, and he'd done some drawings of seaweed for Albert Parr, head of the Peabody Museum of Natural History. When Parr was looking for a design to put on the wall, an art professor told him to use the guy who did his seaweed."^[8]

In 1942, Zallinger was hired to do this work, but he proposed to do a large-scale mural, rather than small individual painting, yielding a panoramic timeline. He spent 6 months doing research, then created a sketch nearly 7 feet (2.1 meters) long, quite similar to the finished result. He then coloured it and added details, which took him nearly a year, and used egg tempera. In 1943, he began his drawing of the mural, using charcoal. He painted it using the fresco-secco technique,^[9][10] most often used in the 15th century. The underpainting was finished in 1944, and the mural finally completed in June 1947.^[7] A portion of the mural appeared on a United States postage stamp in 1970.^[11]

Great Seattle Fire (1953)

A 10 feet high by 24 feet wide (3 by 7.3 meters) mural was commissioned by General Insurance Company of America (SAFECO) in 1953. The mural depicts the Great Seattle Fire which occurred on June 6, 1889. Zallinger spent a long time researching and studying historic photos and their every detail to capture the moment of that fire. The painting was unveiled in 1953, at the Museum of History & Industry, with 50 surviving witnesses and 100 other curious visitors at the event.^[4] It was intended to celebrate the first anniversary of the opening of the Museum of History & Industry. In the painting, the artist's perspective was from the intersection of Yesler Way, 1st Avenue, and James Street, in what is now Pioneer Square, looking east up steep Yesler Hill.^[12]

March of Progress (1965)

The March of Progress (as it's commonly called, although titled "The Road to Homo Sapiens") was created for the Early Man volume for the Life Nature Library, published in 1965 by Time Life. It shows the evolution of man, from ape to Homo Sapiens. Many consider this to be wrong as it presents a "linear evolution", whereas evolution is much more complex, and thus has been heavily criticized despite making its way into popular culture. Many parodies have been made, as it stands as one of the most recognizable scientific images of all time.^[13]

The Age of Mammals (1967)

As Zallinger had previously done work for Life magazine, they commissioned another work of art from him, The Age of Mammals. The drawing for The Age of Mammals was published in October 1953, but there were insufficient funds to begin work on the mural until the 1960s. In 1961, Zallinger began work on the 60 by 5.5 feet (18.3 by 1.7 meters) mural^[14][15] on the south wall of the Hall of Mammalian Evolution in Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History.^[9] Its chronology moves from right to left, and it depicts a variety of plants, animals and landscapes of western North America in the span of 65 million years. It shows the domination of mammals after the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago to the Ice age about 10,000 years ago. It was painted using the fresco-secco technique.^[15]

Early History of Hartford (1986)

A mural made in Zallinger's later life, it depicts the history of Hartford, Connecticut, from the landing of Puritan colonial leader Thomas Hooker in Connecticut, to around the time Zallinger had been born. It depicts people helping build the city, but forgets to display the enslaved black men and woman who also helped build it.^[16] It is on permanent display at Hartford Public Library on the main floor.^[16]

Other books

Zallinger's artistic talent was apparent and he offered to do book cover work. He worked with authors Willy Ley (1906–1969) and Frank H. T. Rhodes. He first illustrated Ley's book, Worlds of the Past, published in 1971.^[18] The book talks about various life forms around the world and the science behind them based on the studies of paleontologists. The cover features 3 dinosaurs. Rhodes's book, Evolution, was published in 1974 and was illustrated by Zallinger and Rebecca A. Merrilees (1922–2012).^[19] He also illustrated the book "Dinosaurs" for Golden Press in 1960.^[20]