Photographer Chip Clark Documented the Science Behind the Mason Story

When the cast iron coffin believed to contain the remains of Isaac Newton Mason was opened at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in May 2003, a room filled with scientists, historians, television crews and reporters stood quietly around the examination table. Among them was Smithsonian staff photographer Chip Clark, whose camera preserved the day with the same care and precision he brought to decades of scientific photography.

Clark was not simply taking pictures. He was documenting a moment where local history, forensic science and human dignity met.

Roy “Chip” Clark came to the National Museum of Natural History in 1973 with a degree in biology and an interest in photography. Over the next 37 years, he became one of the museum’s most respected photographers, documenting thousands of specimens, exhibits, scientific collections and research trips around the world. Smithsonian records note that he photographed rare specimens, exhibits and field work, and accompanied scientists on research trips during his long career at the museum.

His work was known for its technical precision and its ability to reveal the beauty and importance of scientific collections that most museum visitors never see. The Smithsonian later featured 33 large-scale works in the exhibition “Natural Selections, Museum Photography by Chip Clark,” highlighting images of scientists and collections from field sites and behind-the-scenes research spaces.

Clark’s photographs of the National Museum of Natural History’s collections have continued to find new audiences years after his death. Smithsonian Magazine described how his carefully composed images of the museum’s vast collections have repeatedly captured public attention online, introducing viewers to the hidden world behind the public exhibits.

To me, Chip was also a friend.

We met because of the Mason story. I was at the Smithsonian as the Pulaski Citizen reporter who had followed the relocation of the Mason Cemetery from the beginning. Chip was there as the museum’s official photographer, creating the visual record of the examination. In a room filled with nationally known scientists and television professionals, he was warm, generous and deeply respectful of the work taking place.

Afterward, Chip was allowed to share his official photographs of the Isaac Newton Mason examination with me for educational purposes. Those images became an important part of how I was able to explain the Mason story in later presentations, helping audiences understand not only the science involved but also the humanity of the man whose remains were being studied.

Our friendship continued beyond Washington, D.C. Chip later came to Tennessee to visit the Mason Cemetery and other places connected to the story. He photographed the cemetery, the Giles County landscape and places of local interest so he could better understand the setting from which Isaac Newton Mason had come. That visit meant a great deal to me because it showed that Chip saw the Mason story as more than an unusual scientific case. He understood that it belonged to a family, a county and a place.

His photographs did what good historical images should do. They helped make the past visible.

Chip Clark died June 12, 2010, not long after participating in an oral history interview for the National Museum of Natural History’s centennial project. In that interview, conducted May 27, 2010, he discussed his work as a museum photographer and reviewed many of his images, leaving behind another record of a career devoted to science, history and public understanding.

The Mason archive includes Chip’s work because he was part of the story. His photographs helped preserve the scientific examination of Isaac Newton Mason’s remains, but they also helped preserve the care, curiosity and respect that filled the room that day. For those of us who were there, his images are more than documentation. They are memory.