At the intersection of art and medicine

West Vancouver Museum curator Darrin Morrison ponders the human brain, part of a collection of the earliest Canadian medical drawings currently on display at the museum.

Maria Spitale-Leisk photo

The West Vancouver Museum’s latest exhibit offers the ultimate in introspection, flaunting graphic, anatomical drawings of our insides.

“At the Intersection of Art and Medicine” is a collection of 45 medical procedures captured meticulously by female illustrators using pen and ink, watercolour and carbon dust in the late ’30s and early ’40s.

Also exposed is the sexism of the day. Women were discouraged from practising medicine, so they found creative ways to get inside the operating room.

In 1925 Maria Wishart established the Department of Medical Art Service at the University of Toronto. It was a pioneering initiative, the first medicine illustration training school in Canada.

The works produced by Wishart and her female apprentices, who were highly skilled artists in their own right, appear in Grant’s Atlas of Anatomy. Originally published in 1943, the textbook was the first North American anatomy atlas and today remains a teaching tool in some medical schools.

Inside the West Van Museum, there have been polarizing reactions to the first large-scale showing of this original artwork. Some illustrations are seen as beautiful, others grotesque.

Even resident WVM curator Darrin Morrison averts his eyes when walking past certain sections of the exhibit.

“I find all of the shots next door of the interiors and bowels a little distressing,” says Morrison.

In another corner of the room are the eyes. Intricate fibres of the iris stare back at you.

Morrison describes the depiction of the knee surgery, drawn in three parts, as invasive and torturous: layers of skin, fat and muscle peeled back with a metal skin retractor.

“They look painful to me,” says Morrison.

In the end he resolves that he is just as out of tune with his body as the next person.

“Although the illustrations may be difficult to look at, we all have this inside of us. I think we are only concerned with the surface,” adds Morrison.

Viewing the artists’ craft duplicated on the pages of Grant’s Atlas does not do it justice.

Looking at the originals, much of the nuances and subtleties are lost in the atlas. The artist’s hand is less evident, says Morrison.

Nina Czegledy is the guest curator for the exhibit. She is an independent media artist, curator and educator based in Toronto and Budapest.

When asked how this collection, which is on loan from U of T, wound up in West Vancouver, Czegledy responded via email:

“Following an exchange with Darrin Morrison it became clear that the artworks fit well with the mandate of the West Vancouver Museum. This is especially important as the instructive significance and crucial role of anatomical art in medicine remains widely unacknowledged.”

At the Intersection of Art and Medicine runs until March 10 at the West Vancouver Museum, 680 17th St, westvancouvermuseum.ca