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  • Five Centuries of Medicine in Art from the Collection of Bruce and Lois Fye
  • Bert Hansen
Five Centuries of Medicine in Art from the Collection of Bruce and Lois Fye. Curated by W. Bruce Fye, MD. Rochester Art Center, Rochester, Minn., April 24-August 22, 2010.

Even to people outside of our field, the phrase "medicine in art" brings several famous images to mind. First among them would be Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp, with the gorgeous woodcut figures from Vesalius's De fabrica a likely close second. Also familiar to many would be the physician wearing a beaked mask and long gown to protect him from the plague, plus caricatures by Rowlandson and Hogarth, not to speak of Thomas Eakins's two masterpieces, The Gross Clinic and The Agnew Clinic. All these are found in this wide-ranging exhibit even if the astronomically valuable oil paintings are represented by engravings and lithographs. Such prints, however, are not photomechanical reproductions but genuine works of art in themselves. And, of course, the show is not limited to familiar items, and it offers many rarities and novelties even for an aficionado.

Over 250 items are included in the exhibit, all from the personal collection of Bruce and Lois Fye. Dr. W. Bruce Fye is well known to the readers of the Bulletin as author of important works on the history of cardiology, as a rare book dealer whose rich and accurate catalogs have been such a pleasure to peruse, as a popular lecturer on medical history, as a leader in our profession, and as the recent president, simultaneously, of both the American Osler Society and the American Association for the History of Medicine. The timing of this exhibit in the large airy galleries of the Rochester (Minnesota) Art Center made it possible for attendees at the spring 2010 meetings of both these groups to take in this amazing show.

It is rare that one can mount a diverse, balanced, and comprehensive art exhibit drawing on only a single private collection. Even important institutional collections such as those at Yale, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Wellcome might not be able to do better. Furthermore, art museums very seldom provide anything as useful as Fye's rich captioning that reveals what these images contribute to our understanding of the social and cultural history of health and medicine. Fye's organization and his descriptive texts let the art speak for itself while also providing curious visitors with eye-opening information about context, medium, and message. [End Page 674]

In seven connecting rooms, items are displayed in about twenty-two groups. The entry hall welcomes the visitor immediately with two clusters of iconic works: oversize anatomical illustrations from the sixteenth century and wartime nursing posters from the twentieth century. We have all seen the elegant pages from Vesalius's great atlas reproduced in books, but here we can appreciate their scale and study the original detail without the distortions that occur in modern copies.

The next room offers more on the subject on anatomy with exploration of Rembrandt's anatomy lesson, complimented by a section on William Osler, a case of commemorative medals, generously including two sets so viewers get to see both sides at once, and a wall of fourteen large drawings from Leonard Baskin's series Ars anatomica. In a shift from the sublime to the (almost) ridiculous, viewer pass from Baskin's works of art to the colorful graphics of medical advertising, such as the stylish lithograph promoting Dr. Pierce's Golden Medical Discovery, also used on the poster promoting this exhibit.

These are followed by several dozen wood engravings and chromolithographs that appeared in the best-selling weekly magazines in the half century after the Civil War: Harper's Weekly, Puck, and Judge. Fye includes examples of public health advocacy cartoons by Thomas Nast about environmental dangers. From Puck and Judge we have cover art and twenty-seven-inch-wide center spreads that reveal popular thinking about health and medicine in several ways. In some, the artists poke fun directly at doctors, peculiar practices, or medical sects. In some they become advocates for a change in...

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