ANN ARBOR Mich.?The University of Michigan Exhibit Museum of Natural History will welcome new bronze pumas to perches in front of the Ruthven Museums Building on Central Campus.

Weather permitting, the pumas will be installed May 16.

The return of the pumas will be celebrated with a free public Puma Party 3-5 p.m. June 2, coupled with the opening of an exhibit on the work of museum artist Carleton Angell, the puma’s sculptor.

The original sculptures, which date from 1940, were cast in terrazzo, a mixture of stone chips in cement. Weathering had caused them to crack and crumble. Funded by a donation from Jagdish C. and Saroj Janveja, the original pumas are being replaced with more durable bronze casts.

Craftsmen at Venus Bronze Works in Detroit repaired the original pumas and made new molds, which were sent to the Fine Arts Sculpture Center in Clarkston, where specialists produced the bronze casts. The completed casts were treated with chemicals and pigments to produce the familiar black color of the terrazzo sculptures. The original cats are now in storage.

The June 2 Puma Party will feature cake, free puma chocolates for the first 200 visitors, and opportunities to purchase t-shirts, tote bags and gourmet puma chocolates hand-made by Tammy’s Tastings as a fund-raiser for the museum.

Coinciding with the puma celebration, the museum will open an exhibit about the life and work of Angell.

Angell joined U-M as an art instructor in 1922. He became museum artist in 1926. During his 34 years working for U-M, he created hundreds of sculptures, plaques and drawings. Angell retired from U-M in 1956 but continued sculpting until his death in 1962.

Most of Angell’s sculptures were first modeled in clay and then cast in plaster. Sometimes he sent the plaster casts to a foundry to be recast in bronze. For sculptures that were intended for display outdoors, he used cement mixtures instead of plaster to create the final work.

The U-M Exhibit Museum of Natural History is at 1109 Geddes Ave., Ann Arbor.

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