PHILADELPHIA, April 8 /PRNewswire/ -- University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (USP) will exhibit a selection of original medical illustrations by Frank Netter, M.D. (1906-1991), a world-renowned anatomy artist who is regarded by many as the most accomplished and influential medical illustrator of the 20th century. USP will display Dr. Netter’s illustrations in an exhibition titled “Human/Humane: The BioArt of Frank Netter, M.D.,” from April 22 to July 21, 2005, inside USP’s Marvin Samson Center for the History of Pharmacy, located at 600 S. 43rd Street, Philadelphia, Pa. (19104). The free exhibition will be open to the public:
April 22-May 15: Tuesday through Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday noon-5 p.m. May 17-July 21: Tuesday through Thursday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday noon-5 p.m. For more information or to view the exhibition, call 215-596-8721.
The exhibition at USP will consist of 47 unique gouache -- watercolor -- paintings from a corpus of more than 4,000 of Dr. Netter’s works that display various aspects of illness, trauma, anatomy, development, malformation, pathology, medical testing and diagnosis, and patient care. Many of his impressive illustrations, commissioned by Ciba-Geigy Corporation over several decades, appeared in Clinical Symposia, a well-known quarterly clinical monograph used by primary care professionals as a teaching aid and reference. Through the generosity of Novartis Pharmaceuticals -- created by the 1996 merger of the Swiss-based Sandoz and Ciba-Geigy Corporation -- USP is able to display these important works for three months.
Dr. Netter believed that medical illustrations played a vital role in teaching as well as in the development of medical specialties, such as surgery and pathology. He wanted his paintings to be instructive and easily comprehensible; clarity in illustration was his primary and ultimate goal. His association with the Ciba Pharmaceutical Company began in the 1930s, when he began painting pictures to convey information about new products to the medical profession. The demand for these lifelike renderings of major organs and their pathology prompted their publication in book form in 1948. This first collection of medical illustrations received such an enthusiastic reception by the medical profession that Ciba was encouraged to expand the program by creating a series of volumes that would portray the anatomy and pathology of all systems of the human organism. The Netter Collection of Medical Illustrations, first published in 1953 (and then until 1993) spanned 40 years of Dr. Netter’s career. Today, the Atlas of Human Anatomy, a detailed compendium of his illustrations, is the best-selling anatomy atlas in the medical professions. In addition to anatomy, Dr. Netter illustrated whole illnesses and their effects on the body, series of medical procedures and treatments, and scenes of patient care and rehabilitation.
University of the Sciences in Philadelphia is a private, coeducational institution founded in 1821 as Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, the first college of pharmacy in North America. Comprising four colleges across a broad range of majors, USP specializes in educating students for rewarding careers through its undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degree programs in the health and related sciences.
University of the Sciences in Philadelphia
CONTACT: John M. Martino, +1-215-895-1186, or Carolyn Vivaldi,+1-215-596-8855, both for the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia