Julius T. Csotonyi

Julius Thomas Csotonyi (born October 11, 1973) is a Canadian paleoartist and natural history illustrator living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He specialises in photo-realistic restorations of dinosaurs, paleo-environments and extant animals. His techniques encompass both traditional and digital media. He has worked with several magazines and book publishing companies (including Science, National Geographic and Scholastic Inc.) and museums (for example the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, the Houston Museum of Natural Science and the Manitoba Museum), based in Canada, the United States, Europe, Russia, Mexico and Australia. Csotonyi also created the design of the reverse side of the commemorative 25 dollar silver Royal Canadian Mint coin called 50th Anniversary of the Canadian Flag.^[1]

Biography

Restoration of Dinosaur park formation fauna, 2013

Csotonyi was born in Hungary but his family moved to Canada in 1978. He completed a B.Sc. in Ecology and Environmental Biology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, followed by a M.Sc. in Ecology in the same university. He is currently finishing a PhD in microbiology at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. He has published research papers on pollination mutualisms in Utah,^[2] on the effects of trampling on moss in Jasper National Park in Alberta ^[3] and on bacteria living in exotic deep ocean hydrothermal vent ecosystems ^[4][5] and in terrestrial salt springs.^[6][7] He recently published a book with Steve White, entitled The Paleoart of Julius Csotonyi: Dinosaurs Sabre-Tooths and Beyond, featuring many of his pieces of art, and some descriptions of them.^[8]

Paleoart

Restoration of the earliest known dromaeosaurid, 2015

Csotonyi first started drawing at age three, with a dinosaur illustration. He was influenced by murals by Rudolph Zallinger, and a visit to the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology to take up paleoart as a living. His family is artistic as a whole, and his spouse, Alexandra Lefort, draws and paint for a hobby. His art is used by many sources, such as National Geographic Magazine, Science, Titan Books, and Scholastic Inc., and many museum exhibits, mainly in the Royal Tyrrell Museum, Royal Ontario Museum, Houston Museum of Natural Science, Manitoba Museum, and Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.^[8]

Recent museum projects

Several of his drawings can be seen on signs along the Alberta's Fossil Trail, commissioned by the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology (Drumheller, Canada). In 2007, he was commissioned by this museum to illustrate their new ceratopsian permanent exhibit in Dinosaur Hall. He also produced the main illustration for the Tyrrell Museum’s website.

One of his recent pieces of artwork is a 64-foot-long (20 m) mural completed for the 2008 exhibit Dinosaur Mummy CSI: Cretaceous Science Investigation of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, featuring a mummified Brachylophosaurus nicknamed "Leonardo" (the Guinness Book of World Record's best preserved dinosaur).

In 2009, his illustrations were incorporated into the recently restored permanent exhibit, the Age of Dinosaurs section of the Earth History Gallery in the Manitoba Museum (Winnipeg, Canada).

References

1. ↑ Royal Canadian Mint, $25 for $25 Fine Silver Coin – 50th Anniversary of the Canadian Flag specifications: http://www.mint.ca/store/product/coin_exchange.jsp?itemId=prod2280635
2. ↑ Csotonyi, J.T.; Addicott, J.F. (2001), "Competition between mutualists: the role of differential flower abscission in yuccas", Oikos 94: 557-565, doi:10.1034/j.1600-0706.2001.940317.x
3. ↑ Csotonyi, J.T.; Addicott, J.F. (2004), "Influence of trampling-induced microtopography on growth of the soil crust bryophyte Ceratodon purpureus in Jasper National Park", Canadian Journal of Botany 82: 1382-1392, doi:10.1139/B04-098
4. ↑ Csotonyi, J.T.; Stackebrandt, E.; Yurkov, V. (2006), "Anaerobic respiration on tellurate and other metalloids in bacteria from hydrothermal vent fields in the Eastern Pacific Ocean", Applied and Environmental Microbiology 72: 4950-4956, doi:10.1128/AEM.00223-06
5. ↑ Yurkov, V.; Csotonyi, J.T. (2003), "Aerobic anoxygenic phototrophs and heavy metalloid reducers from extreme environments", In Pandalai, S.G. (ed.) Recent Research Developments in Bacteriology, vol. 1, pp. 247–300. Trivandrum, India: Transworld Research Network
6. ↑ Csotonyi, J.T.; Swiderski, J.; Stackebrandt, E.; Yurkov, V. (2008), "Novel halophilic aerobic anoxygenic phototrophs from a Canadian hypersaline spring system", Extremophiles 12: 529-539, doi:10.1007/s00792-008-0156-8
7. ↑ Yurkov, V.; Csotonyi, J.T. (2009), "New light on aerobic anoxygenic phototrophs", In Hunter, N.; Daldal, F.; Thurnauer, M.C.; Beatty, J.T. (eds.) The Purple Phototrophic Bacteria, pp. 31-55. New York, NY: Springer Science + Business Media B. V.
8. 1 2 Csotonyi, J.T.; White, S. (2014). The Paleoart of Julius Csotonyi: Dinosaurs, Sabre-Tooths and Beyond. Titan Books. pp. 1–156. ISBN 978-1-7811-6912-4. 

External links

• Julius T. Csotonyi official webpage
• The Science of Paleoart, article by Julius T. Csotonyi on the Blog of the Houston Museum of Natural Science