Pioneers of Canadian Medical Illustration

As part of the Intimate Perceptions exhibition, we are fortunate to present to the general public a selection of early Canadian medical illustrations, for the first time ever. Selected watercolours, pen and ink drawings, and carbon dust work by Elizabeth Blackstock, Dorothy Foster-Chubb, Stephen Gilbert, Nancy Joy, Eila Hopper Ross, and Maria T. Wishart will be on show at InterAccess.

Since the mid-1920s, these pioneers established the foundations of Canadian medical illustration, initiated university curriculums, made important contributions to well-known publications such as Grant's Anatomy, and-most importantly-trained several generations of medical illustrators.

The original scientific representations-an important part of Canadian heritage-elegantly complement the contemporary reflections on the human body as revealed in the exhibited artworks and various online and onsite events of The Digitized Bodies-Virtual Spectacles project.

The exhibition of the Pioneers of Canadian Medical Illustration artworks was made possible by the generous loan of the pieces by the Division of Biomedical Communications at the University of Toronto.

Nina Czegledy
Curator

"The Division of Biomedical Communications (Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto) is fortunate to have a large archive of historical medical illustrations representing the work of a number Canadian and international pioneers in the field. These pieces encapsulate a time when the medical view of the body, and of health and disease, was mostly macroscopic in nature, dealing with the exigencies of bodily structure and repair. They also provide a glimpse of a time when the opportunities for women in medical study and practice were severely restricted. Some women were able to find a home in a profession that allowed them to visually express their fascination with the mechanics of life."

Nick Woolridge
Division of Biomedical Communications, University of Toronto