Karen T. Taylor[1] (born March 6, 1952) is an American forensic and portrait artist who has worked to help resolve criminal cases for a variety of law enforcement agencies throughout the world. Her primary expertise includes composite imagery, child and adult age progression, postmortem drawing and forensic facial reconstruction. In the mid-1980s, Taylor pioneered the method of 2-dimensional facial reconstruction, by drawing facial features over frontal and lateral skull photographs based on anthropological data. Taylor is also well-established as a forensic art educator, fine art portrait sculptor, and specialist in the human face.
Taylor, a native of Fort Worth, Texas, developed an early aptitude for drawing and sculpting faces. She attended R. L. Paschal High School, the University of Texas School of Fine Arts in Austin and the Chelsea School of Fine Art in London. While in England, she worked as a portrait sculptor for Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. Taylor returned to Texas and spent over 18 years as the Texas Department of Public Safety's first full-time forensic artist.
Taylor was a forensic art instructor for over twenty years at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia (through the fall of 2006) and other law enforcement academies, universities, art and medical schools internationally. She also conducts face-related training workshops for fine artists and specializes in highly accurate and subtly expressive portraits in bronze.
In October, 1997 Texas Department of Public Safety, Colonel Dudley M. Thomas honored Taylor with a "Director's Citation" for service beyond the normal course of duty, "performing the difficult task of identifying victims and assisting in bringing dangerous criminals to justice". Director Thomas recognized her "professionalism, ambition, and talent which advanced her status as a forensic artist to a position that leads the nation in providing a variety of forensic art techniques and services". The award made particular note of Taylor's ingenuity and initiative which led to the development of the 2-dimensional facial reconstruction technique that "has been recognized internationally, revolutionizing skull-to-face reconstruction and making an invaluable contribution to the Department, law enforcement and anthropological research."
Colonel Thomas cited Karen's "expertise, diligence and dedication in the performance of her duties" as "reflecting great credit upon her, the profession of law enforcement and the Texas Department of Public Safety".
Texas Women of the Century
After years of success as a forensic artist, helping capture criminals and identify their victims, Taylor was named one of the "Texas Women of the Century" in 1999, a tribute to the 100 most influential Texas women of the past century. The twenty four collaborating organizations of the Women of the Century Project described her as "the premier forensic artist in the world". Taylor shared the honor with fellow recipients, Barbara Bush, Dale Evans, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Lady Bird Johnson, Barbara Jordon, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Governor Ann Richards, Mary Kay Ash, Elisabet Ney and others.
Dondero Award
In 2002, she was the first woman to receive the "Dondero Award" from the International Association for Identification for her "outstanding contribution in the field of scientific identification".[2] Previous Dondero Award recipients include J. Edgar Hoover and Dr. Henry Lee.
Portrait sculpture
After years of artistically depicting "Bad Guys" and their victims, Taylor now focuses on honoring the "Good Guys" with a series of bronzes which commemorate various individuals who have made a significant contribution to society. Taylor's bronze sculpture of forensic scientist George Taft is displayed at the Alaska State Troopers Museum in Anchorage, Alaska. Taft's sculpture was the first in the series of Taylor's "Good Guys."
A portrait sculpture of Barbara Benton (wife of Thomas Hart Benton V) resides in the International Headquarters of the Order of the Eastern Star in the Embassy Row area of Washington, D.C.
Beginning in 1990, Taylor was a contributor to America's Most Wanted on FOX, and remained so until the show's cancellation. One unidentified deceased case, done for the Chicago Police Department and AMW, could be seen on the show's website.[3] Taylor's reconstruction of the young murdered girl led to her identification.
Taylor's work has also been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Court TV,[4] the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, Telemundo and the BBC. CBS drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation created a forensic artist character based on Taylor and her artwork and hands have appeared on both the Las Vegas-based and New York-based shows.[5] Taylor served as a "real life" consultant to museum exhibit "CSI: the Experience",[6] a traveling interactive exhibition developed by the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. Taylor has also contributed to the popular program Bones on FOX.
Taylor did a “facial reconstruction” prop sculpture that was used on Body of Proof on ABC on the episode called “Occupational Hazards” written by Corey Miller and produced by Matthew Gross. Actress Jeri Ryan was coached by Taylor in sculptural hand movements so that Ryan's character realistically portrayed a forensic sculptor.
In collaboration with Dr. Nancy Etcoff, professor of neuropsychology at Harvard Medical School, Taylor developed a generalized universal template for idealized feminine beauty. Taylor's drawings aired on Discover Channel feature Survival of the Prettiest, based on Etcoff's book by the same name. More recently, this work has been broadcast on Discovery's How Stuff Works, in a segment called "Prescribing Beauty: Faces and Perceptions of Perfection".
Taylor's resolved forensic identification cases have been profiled on various reality-based crime shows. The New Detectives featured Taylor and her work in episodes "Faces of Tragedy", "Cold Cases" and "Drawing Conclusions". Forensic Files has interviewed Taylor and shown her work in episodes entitled "Headquarters" and "Saving Face".[7]
The FBI in Washington, D.C. commissioned Taylor to do an age progression sculpture of fugitive suspected family annihilator William Bradford Bishop. Bishop was added to the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List on April 10, 2014.[8]
Historical projects
Taylor working on the reconstructed Bo Man from Southern China
Taylor has been involved in a variety of special art projects, particularly those of historical significance, which utilize modern forensic art identification techniques in a historical context. She created the first sculpted facial reconstruction of one of the Bo people of southern China, based on an 800-year-old skull. The Bo interred their dead in mysterious hanging coffins suspended from sheer cliffs.
Using a skull casting, Taylor also revealed, for the first time, the sculpted face of the Red Queen of Palenque,[9] a Mayan queen who lived 1000 years ago. Teamed with a bioarchaeologist, Taylor's work on this historical case is documented in a video entitled "Mesoamerica: Forensic Artist Gives the Red Queen a Face".
Premiering in 2012, Taylor acted as part of the "Texas Team" for the television series The Decrypters, produced by Shine Television of London. In the US, the show aired on the National Geographic Channel. For each episode, the team, primarily composed of anthropologists from the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University (FACTS), examined historically interesting skeletal cases using modern investigative methods. Taylor's task was to assess the various skulls and artistically determine how the individual would have appeared in life.
In early 2012, members of the Dubuque County Historical Society and curators at the National Mississippi River Museum asked Taylor to create a 2D facial reconstruction based on the skull of Julien Dubuque, founder of Dubuque, Iowa. Taylor was able to produce a reconstruction using photos of Dubuque's skull taken in 1887.
Publications
Taylor authored the in-depth textbook, Forensic Art and Illustration, CRC Press, Boca Raton, London, New York, Washington DC, 2001.[10][11]
Taylor was featured in American Artist Drawing magazine, Summer 2006 in an article titled, "Understanding Faces from the Inside Out" by Edith Zimmerman.
Julien Dubuque was a Canadian of Norman origin from the area of Champlain, Quebec who arrived near what now is known as Dubuque, Iowa, which was named after him. He was one of the first European men to settle in the area. He initially received permission from the Meskwaki people to mine the lead in 1788, which was confirmed by the Spanish, who gave him a land grant in 1796.
Craniometry is measurement of the cranium, usually the human cranium. It is a subset of cephalometry, measurement of the head, which in humans is a subset of anthropometry, measurement of the human body. It is distinct from phrenology, the pseudoscience that tried to link personality and character to head shape, and physiognomy, which tried the same for facial features.
Forensic facial reconstruction is the process of recreating the face of an individual from their skeletal remains through an amalgamation of artistry, anthropology, osteology, and anatomy. It is easily the most subjective—as well as one of the most controversial—techniques in the field of forensic anthropology. Despite this controversy, facial reconstruction has proved successful frequently enough that research and methodological developments continue to be advanced.
A facial composite is a graphical representation of one or more eyewitnesses' memories of a face, as recorded by a composite artist. Facial composites are used mainly by police in their investigation of crimes. These images are used to reconstruct the suspect's face in hope of identifying them. Facial reconstruction can also be used in archeological studies to get a visualization of ancient mummies or human remains.
Christian Corbet is a Canadian artist. He is a Sculptor in Residence for the Royal Canadian Navy.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to forensic science:
Harvey Phillip Pratt is an American forensic artist and Native American artist, who has worked for over forty years in law enforcement, completing thousands of composite drawings and hundreds of soft tissue postmortem reconstructions. To this end, his work has assisted in thousands of arrests and hundreds of identification of unidentified human remains throughout America. His expertise in witness description drawing, skull reconstruction, skull tracing, age progression, soft tissue postmortem drawing and restoration of photographs and videos have aided law enforcement agencies both nationally and internationally. Pratt also assists investigations through training classes, besides lecturing before universities, colleges, schools and civic groups. In the early 2000s Pratt teamed up with David Paulides in researching Bigfoot on the Hoopa Reservation in California, as well as in his home state of Oklahoma.
Forensic art is any art used in law enforcement or legal proceedings. Forensic art is used to assist law enforcement with the visual aspects of a case, often using witness descriptions and video footage.
Francis Augustus Bender was a forensic artist and fine artist. He made facial reconstructions of the dead based on their skeletons, and of fugitives based on outdated photographs, with his reconstructions showing how they might look in the present day. He primarily worked in clay and then cast his pieces into plaster and painted them, but he also created age-progression drawings of fugitives using pastels. His most famous facial reconstruction case was that of murderer John Emil List, who, after decades as a fugitive under a false identity, was captured a few days after Bender's bust of him was featured on America's Most Wanted.
Meresamun was an ancient Egyptian singer-priestess in the inner sanctum at the temple in Karnak. Her mummy, which dates to ca. 800 BCE, was on exhibit at the Oriental Institute of Chicago Museum of the University of Chicago from February 10 to December 6, 2009. A special exhibition, “The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt,” opened in February 2009 and provides a personal look into Meresamun's life.
Mikhail Mikhaylovich Gerasimov was a Soviet archaeologist and anthropologist who discovered the Mal'ta–Buret' culture and developed the first technique of forensic sculpture based on findings of anthropology, archaeology, paleontology, and forensic science. He studied the skulls and meticulously reconstructed the faces of more than 200 people, ranging from the earliest excavated homo sapiens and neanderthals, to the Middle Ages' monarchs and dignitaries, including emperor Timur (Tamerlane), Yaroslav the Wise, Ivan the Terrible, and Friedrich Schiller.
Richard Neave is a British expert in forensic facial reconstruction. Neave became an expert in anatomical art and was on the staff of the Unit of Art in Medicine at the University of Manchester.
Karen Price was a 15-year-old Welsh murder victim who disappeared in 1981. After the discovery of her body in 1989, British facial reconstruction artist Richard Neave used her skull to create a model of her physical appearance. The reconstruction and the matching of DNA in the body to that of Price's parents allowed her body to be identified. The case was cited as one of the first instances in which DNA technology was used in this way.
Caroline M. Wilkinson is a British anthropologist and academic, who specialises in forensic facial reconstruction. She has been a professor at the Liverpool John Moores University's School of Art and Design since 2014. She is best known for her work in forensic facial reconstruction and has been a contributor to many television programmes on the subject, as well as the creator of reconstructed heads of kings Richard III of England in 2013 and Robert the Bruce of Scotland in 2016.
Sherri Ann Jarvis was an American murder victim from Forest Lake, Minnesota whose body was discovered in Huntsville, Texas on November 1, 1980. Her body was discovered within hours of her sexual assault and murder, and remained unidentified for 41 years before investigators announced her identification via forensic genealogy in November 2021.
April Dawn Lacy was a previously unidentified American homicide victim who was discovered in 1996 in Decatur, Texas. She was identified in 1998 after her face was reconstructed and dental information was compared between both subjects. Although her body was identified, her murder remains unsolved. The circumstances surrounding April's murder are unknown, although she is believed by police to have run away from home and may have engaged in prostitution.
Betty Patricia Gatliff was an American pioneer in the field of forensic art and forensic facial reconstruction. Working closely with forensic anthropologist Dr. Clyde Snow, she sculpturally reconstructed faces of individuals including the Pharaoh Tutankhamun, President John F. Kennedy, and the unidentified victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy.
Lois Gibson is an American forensic artist who holds a 2017 Guinness World Record for most identifications by a forensic artist. She also drew the first forensic sketch shown on America's Most Wanted, which helped identify the suspect and solve the case.
Mary Huffman Manhein is an American forensic anthropologist. Nicknamed The Bone Lady, she was the founding director of the Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services (FACES) laboratory at Louisiana State University (LSU) in 1990, and of the Louisiana Repository for Unidentified and Missing Persons Information Program in 2006. The repository is considered the "most comprehensive statewide database of its kind".
Carl Koppelman is an American professional accountant and unpaid volunteer forensic sketch artist. Since 2009, Koppelman has drawn over 250 reconstructions and age progressions of missing and unidentified people.
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