Living Sharks Museum delivers epic JAWS 50th anniversary exhibition

Living Sharks Musem curator Keith Cowley at the helm of Michael Sterling's Orca

The 50th anniversary of Jaws may have brought the fans back out in droves, but one New England researcher and shark historian has been quietly building a lifetime legacy in the form of America’s first shark history museum. His extensive Jaws collection has been a sleeper until now...

In 2017, Keith Cowley began to convert his shark research office in downtown Westerly, RI into a small- scale shark museum exhibition, but he had no idea it would gain so much interest. He had artifacts from all over the world by way of a lifetime deep diving into the world of sharks. “I had colleagues coming in expressing how noteworthy the collection was,” recalls Cowley, “in particular: the depth. I’d go down rabbit holes to find references for the smallest details. Since I was also teaching about sharks all over New England at the time, I was focused intently on presenting visual aids from an unbiased perspective. So yeah, we talked about the importance of conservation, but we also talked about my unbridled love for Jaws.”

Cowley remembered his first time seeing the film. “I was an 80’s kid, so it wasn’t until it finally came on television for the first time with my grandfather. He was retired but still fishing commercially off Connecticut and New York for line-caught groundfish, so I’d seen sharks on the boat with him over the years. I was still pretty young then. Thankfully he hadn’t watched the film before we watched it together. By then it was too late, and I was hooked.”

Once formalized as Living Sharks Museum, the exhibition became the first shark history and conservation museum in the country. “The only formal “shark-exclusive museums” I was aware of at the time were the Bjarnarhofn in Iceland, one on the island Fernando de Noronha off Brazil, and one in Kesennuma City, Japan. If I had direct inspiration it was always Rodney Fox’s exhibition in Australia, which Mark Tozer has developed into an unparalleled national treasure-trove.” In the USA, there was an educational outreach center in Cape Cod, Atlantic White Shark Conservancy’s Shark Center (only recently marketing themselves as a museum) that was only focused on, and well-funded by, the return of great white shark to their shores.

Living Sharks Museum's Jaws Anniversary Exhibition

Living Sharks Museum was something different. It’s both a research center and natural history museum. The exhibits obsessively span across shark history from thousands of prehistoric shark specimens, to beautifully preserved indigenous shark-toothed weapons, examples of WW2 and early shark deterrent technology, artifacts of the commercial shark trade, as well as biological samples and references. However, one of its oldest collections was what he refers to as the “sharksploitation” collection. “I grew up a huge fan of practical creature films. In addition to ephemera from lesser known shark films that predate 1975, I had been hanging onto Jaws items since I was a kid. I was raised in and around the historic coastal town of Stonington, CT where the author of Jaws, Peter Benchley and his wife Wendy lived. I’d taken decent care of my signed books, as well as a huge cutout of the book’s cover that had been on display at the Stonington Library in my youth where I’d met him. I had a few original hard-to- find items from the film as a teenager, but as the years pressed on I evolved into a completionist in the form of a Curator. I focused predominantly on the 1970’s marketing, retail, and promotion of what has been my favorite film of all time.”

What resulted was an original Jaws collection closing in on 1000 pieces. A few noteworthy pieces are the original 1975 Vineyard Gazette newspapers reviewing the film’s premiere, with authentic prints made by set photographer Edith Blake, an original shark tooth made on set in Martha’s Vineyard by special effects artist Roy Arbogast, as well as the head of the doomed shark fisherman Ben Gardner. “It was pulled from the original mold. There are more of these out there, but this one has a backstory.” The weathered head of actor Craig Kingsbury with his iconic bulging eyes and a look of surprise actually came from the collection of the reknowned Spooky World of Berlin, Massachusetts, a horror attraction with a short run in the early 90’s that boasted original props and celebrity appearances. A still-image cameo of Cowley and the prop can be spotted in the 2025 Campopiano doc honoring Kingsbury himself entitled The Farmer & the Shark.

The Jaws Collector aka Jim Beller & Cowley at Living Sharks Museum

Also living in Rhode Island, The Jaws Collector, Jim Beller, is a frequent visitor to the museum. “I’m always grateful for his encouragement. That he even comes here is a huge compliment,” remarks Cowley. “All us fans think we have the most Jaws knowledge. Truth is, outside of the film’s own production crew, Jim is the only one who really knows it all, and no one will ever have a larger Jaws memorabilia collection and understanding of the minutia than Jim. I may get referred to as the Shark Historian in my circles, but Jim is undoubtedly and affectionately the Jaws Historian. That being said, one of my favorite pastimes is trying to find artifacts or paraphernalia from the film that he has never seen or possessed. To one-up the master.” After a beat, Cowley laughs. “In a lifetime of collecting I think that’s happened once, maybe twice.”

Wendy Benchley & Cowley at Living Sharks Museum

When Wendy Benchley finally made it into the exhibition, she enthusiastically remarked that even she “didn’t realize how much merch they actually made in the 70’s” until she saw it all in under one roof at Living Sharks Museum. “She was closely examining one of the shark tooth necklaces I had from 1975 still in its original packaging,” Cowley added. “I used that opportunity to open a drawer and show her a whole shark jaw still in its original packaging from Jaws 2, stating that by the time the sequel came out, they were selling real shark parts to promote the film... a testament to how people’s perspectives about sharks had shifted. She was moved by that.” There’s something to be said for all this shark history in one place. Benchley has been a supporter of Cowley’s work since their first interview together during the pandemic on In the Fighting Chair. She entrusted him to teach about sharks at her revival of the Peter Benchley Awards in 2025, and it was a natural progression to work together again to host her doc Jaws@50 at the United Theatre with Living Sharks Museum in Westerly, Rhode Island, just a town away from where she and Peter used to live. She hopes that the film Jaws inspires new generations to stand up for sharks.

There’s a long-standing debate around whether Jaws and shark conservation can be used in the same sentence. Cowley has a hopeful take. “Jaws has been a gateway conversation to help me gauge how museum visitors really feel about sharks. From there we can dig into the factual issues that sharks have faced throughout history, and continue to face. The majority have not experienced sharks in the ways that I have, so it’s a challenge to curb their fears about the toothy fish, but through education they develop a better understanding of their necessity in our oceans. They usually leave intrigued, more aware of their impact.” As a diver, Cowley has worked with research groups that study shark behavior up close and intimately, employing what he calls “eye-to-eye observation”, along with a myriad of cutting edge research tools. He learned underwater camerawork techniques from the best in the business, gaining effective perspective and new mediums to help demystify sharks and protect their species. “I still think that the future of shark science and conservation is visual. All the missing pieces of shark life histories that have never been seen via the human eye (i.e. white sharks mating and giving birth) will someday be captured on film, but they haven’t been yet. When I was a kid I thought everything on the planet had been discovered, with the exception of the Megamouth! Back then there were only 250 to 300 species of sharks and rays known to science. Today there are over 540. New species are being discovered and re-discovered regularly, informing policy makers about delicate ecosystems. These pursuits inspire new generations of explorers, researchers and documentarians, yielding alternative impactful visuals to the repetitious shark bite scenarios that made a film like Jaws a fear-mongering classic.”

The Jaws 50th Anniversary Exhibition in the gallery formally ran from Memorial Day through Labor Day in 2025, though the collection is never far away. “You can’t have a shark history museum without Jaws,” Cowley simply stated. “There will always be something for the Jaws fans who visit. As for the Jaws collection itself, it may be evolving into something new, and possibly even more exciting... but I won’t let that cat out of the bag just yet.” As the museum’s 8th season approaches in 2026, Living Sharks Museum is getting a full flip and a fresh new exhibition. Keith Cowley’s momentum has a few more gears. What’s next? “You’re going to have to follow along for that!”

Explore a sneak peek into the Jaws 50th Anniversary Exhibition below.

To learn more about Living Sharks Museum and Cowley’s work, visit: livingsharks.org and follow @livingsharksmuseum & @sharkhistorian on FB/IG.