Grigore Antipa

Grigore Antipa was a Romanian naturalist, zoologist, ichthyologist, ecologist, oceanologist, Darwinist biologist who studied the fauna of the Danube Delta and the Black Sea. Between 1892 and 1944 he was the director of the Bucharest Natural History Museum, which now bears his name. He is also considered to be the first person to modernize the diorama by emphasizing the three-dimensional aspect and first to use dioramas in a museum setting. He is the scientist who reorganized the Grigore Antipa National Museum of Natural History in the new building that today bears his name, designed by the architect Grigore Cerchez, built in 1906 and inaugurated by Carol I of Romania in 1908. He was elected as member of the Romanian Academy in 1910 and was also a member of several foreign academies. Grigore Antipa founded a school of hydrobiology and ichthyology in Romania.