Job Openings on Governor's Island: Director of External Relations and Vice President, OpenHouseGI

One of all time favorite cultural spaces in New York City--Governor's Island--is looking to hire for two positions: Director of External Relations (on which more here) and Vice President, OpenHouseGI (more here).

Overview on each of these roles follows; You can find out more about them by clicking here here.

Director of External Relations. Two key words drive so much of what we do on the Island: "welcoming" and "visible" and the Director will own all strategies and programs to insure that we are both welcoming and visible. This includes but is not limited to media relations, social media and the website. The Director will own work on the Island and in communities to insure that all New Yorkers, and increasingly tourists too, know about the island and feel welcome here. With the opening of the HIlls this summer, there will be a big push to make the Island more visible than ever.

Second, and equally important, we have a new position VP of OpenHouseGi. Governors Island has become New York City's "shared space for art and play" in large part due to this program, where we provide free space to any organization that creates a free public experience. The public enjoys exhibits, festivals and performances created by dozens of organizations each season.  Now we want to raise the program up a level, fostering more collaboration, new ideas, and big ideas, without compromising our commitment to openness and our formula of no curation, no selection and no funding.  The Island is recognized as a national model but we want to continue to learn and improve and grow.

Art & Anatomy Workshop with Eleanor Crook and Dr Sarah Simblet at Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University, July and September 2016

Our good friend Eleanor Crook and Dr Sarah Simblet--author of Anatomy for the Artist--will be teaching an Art and Anatomy course at Ruskin School of Art at Oxford University. 

The classes take place July and September of this year. Full details follow. You can also find out more here!

The Ruskin School of Art offers a unique opportunity to those with wish to study and explore human anatomy with highly regarded artists and anatomists. The Ruskin remains the last art school in Europe to incorporate such an in depth study of anatomy within its teaching.

Art and Anatomy 2016 - Two Courses

Dr Sarah Simblet and Eleanor Crook will together teach and guide students on 2 seven day courses in the summer of 2016. Both courses will offer the same programme.

Art and Anatomy Course One: Monday 18th - Sunday 24th July 2016

Art and Anatomy Course Two: Monday 12th September - Sunday 18th September 2016

The programme has been developed around Sarah’s best selling book, Anatomy for the Artist, Dorling Kindersley. The course covers aspects of human anatomy, its drawing and history, and continues to be highly regarded and very successful.

This will be the fifth year of the Art and Anatomy course and a wide variety of artists have benefited from its unique programme - sixth formers, medical artists and students, professional and amateur artists of traditional and contemporary practice. You will take part in intensive workshops, lectures and group discussions on human anatomy, with time for personal studio work.

Consistently interesting and beneficial and I very much enjoyed the presentations.' Art and Anatomy participant, 2014.

‘This is without a doubt the most informative, exciting and challenging short course I have taken for art. The tutors are friendly and diligent making this an unmissable experience for budding artists’ Art and Anatomy participant, 2013

Participants need to bring their preferred drawing materials and the Ruskin will provide easels, paper, a mounted skull and torso armature, wire and wax for modelling, and life models.

No academic or artistic criteria is required for attendance on this course. Participants can expect to leave with a portfolio of new work, a much wider understanding of the subject explored and a wealth of ideas for future artistic development.

Programme

Day 1 : Structural Drawing

Day 2 : The Skeleton

Day 3 : Musculature

Day 4 : Wax Modelling Head and Neck

Day 5 : Wax Modelling Ecorché (muscle figure)

Day 6 : Personal studio time with tutor

Day 7 : Life Drawing

Charges

Ruskin courses are only available to adults over the age of 16 years.

There are three payment rates available:

• Adult - £980.00
• Oxford University students, staff and alumni (10% discount) - £882.00
• Students (with a current NUS card) and OAPs (5% discount) - £931.00

If you select a discounted booking rate, you will need to present your University alumni/staff card, NUS card, or some form of identification indicating your OAP status at the start of the course.

To book a place on any of the Ruskin short courses, please visit the University's online store via this link: https://www.oxforduniversitystores.co.uk

Head and Neck (Portraiture) Anatomy : Monday 1st - Friday 5th August 2016

For the third year, Eleanor and Sarah will offer a five day course on the head and neck in the summer of 2016. This programme was developed in response to the overwhelming success of the Art and Anatomy course and is a dynamic programme that explores human anatomy in greater depth.

'Studying the anatomy of the head has helped me with my drawing and most importantly my perception of the structure for sculpture' Participant on the Head and Neck course, 2014

An intensive, practical Fine Art course on the anatomy, physiology and expression of the human head, offering specialist lectures in anatomy, forensic facial reconstruction and the art history of portraiture. Studio sessions included drawing the head from life, sculpting facial musculature over a cast skull using wax, visits to museums to look at expressive heads in diverse cultures, and also the making of rapid improvised sculptures using found materials to explore the very essence of human expression and communication through the medium of portraiture.

Programme

Day 1 : Anatomy of the human skull

Day 2 : Muscles of facial expression and wax sculpting over a life size cast

Day 3 : Portrait head sculpting in clayDay 4 : Site visit and studio work

Day 5 : Skull decorating to create a powerful head object

Charges

Ruskin courses are only available to adults over the age of 16 years.

There are three payment rates available:

• Adult - £750.00
• Oxford University students, staff and alumni (10% discount) - £675.00
• Students (with a current NUS card) and OAPs (5% discount) - £712.50

If you select a discounted booking rate, you will need to present your University alumni/staff card, NUS card, or some form of identification indicating your OAP status at the start of the course.

To book a place on this course, please visit the University's online store via this link: https://www.oxforduniversitystores.co.uk

Sculpting the Body : Anatomy, Life Modelling and Écorché : Monday 26th September - Friday 30th September 2016

Sarah and Eleanor will teach you to sculpt the human figure confidently with an understanding of anatomy, designing statue poses, preparing armatures and modelling in clay and wax, culminating in a personal and sophisticated final piece. Eleanor and Sarah will share their expertise in anatomy, materials handling, history of sculpture and figure modelling for an entertaining and intensive 5-day session. You will be able to choose whether to finish your work as a sculpted figure or as an “écorché” (an anatomical muscle figure).

Materials and printed reference will be included.

Programme

Day 1 : Introduction to the skeleton and anatomy of the écorché

Day 2 : Designing a pose and preparing 2 armatures

Day 3 : Clay modelling on an armature and wax modelling on a miniature armature with a life model

Day 4 : Site vist and life modelling

Day 5 : Advance figure modelling with life model

Charges

Ruskin courses are only available to adults over the age of 16 years. 

There are three payment rates available:

• Adult - £750.00
• Oxford University students, staff and alumni (10% discount) - £675.00
• Students (with a current NUS card) and OAPs (5% discount) - £712.50

If you select a discounted booking rate, you will need to present your University alumni/staff card, NUS card, or some form of identification indicating your OAP status at the start of the course.

To book a place on this course, please visit the University's online store via this link: https://www.oxforduniversitystores.co.uk

Human Anatomy Teaching Staff

Dr Sarah Simblet

Sarah Simblet is an artist who writes and draws. She is also a broadcaster, lecturer and anatomist with broad research interests in the relationship between art, science and history. She has published three major art reference books with Dorling Kindersley: ‘Anatomy for the Artist’, ‘The Drawing Book’ and ‘Botany for the Artist’ and exhibits her drawings through her books. Sarah contributes to contemporary art shows, festivals and live events and her work is held in national and private collections. She contributes regularly to British, American and international television and radio programmes about science and art, and consults on national exhibitions. She is Tutor in Anatomy at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford, a freelance lecturer at the National Gallery London, and Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, and is an academic member of Wolfson College, Oxford. 

Eleanor Crook

Eleanor Crook is one of the world’s leading anatomical modellers in wax: a contemporary artist who uses traditional and newly invented techniques to express and explain the drama of the human body. Eleanor trained in sculpture at Central St Martins and the Royal Academy and makes figures and effigies in wax, carved wood and lifelike media, with exhibitions nationally and internationally. She has sculpted anatomical and pathological waxworks for the Gordon Museum of Pathology at Guy's Hospital, London's Science Museum, and the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and is a lecturer at the Royal College of Art and the Central St Martin School of Art in London.

Post-Mortem Portraits of the Dukes of Württemberg: Guest Post by Eric Huang, Morbid Anatomy Foreign Corespondent

In the following guest post, Morbid Anatomy foreign corespondent Eric Huang reports on the post-mortem portraits of the Dukes of Württemberg, which can be seen in the crypt of Altes Schlos (or "Old Castle), a Renaissance era castle turned museum in Stuttgart, Germany. All photos are his own.

Death Portraits of the Dukes of Württemberg
The Landesmuseum in Stuttgart is a history museum about Württemberg, formerly a kingdom and today a part of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. The collection is formed in large part by the 16th-century wunderkammer of the royal family. Paintings, decorative art, sacred art, as well as an impressive collection of clocks and glassware, fill the Altes Schloss, a Renaissance era castle and former royal residence that now houses the museum.

The only part of the building that retains its Renaissance character is the crypt. Several members of the royal family of Württemberg are buried in the inner chamber beneath grand marble monuments. The entryway to the burial chamber is an art gallery of late 17th and early 18th century death portraits. Dukes and Duchesses of the land are painted as if asleep with putti and loved ones in mournful attendance.

Herzogin Magdelena Sybilla Württemberg’s portrait (4th image down) is unique in that she is depicted sitting up rather than in a state of repose. She has been dressed in high mourning and posed in a chair, her head propped up by a left elbow that leans casually on a casket. A grave marker flanked by skeletons stands in the background to the right. The background appears to be a depiction of the burial chamber in the next room, although the room looks a different today with more recent 19th century monuments in place of the 17th century caskets.

It takes about three hours to properly tour the museum and all its collections. The crypt is a little difficult to find, though. Use the lifts in the lobby to reach the first floor Mezzanine level. Then follow the arrows to exit out of the castle, walk along a veranda, and down the stairwell to the crypt. Ask a staff member if you can’t find it, as the crypt is an unmissable feature of the museum.

Second Annual Morbid Anatomy Museum Gala With Honorary Chair Parker Posey and Afterparty With DJ Set by Electronic Music Pioneer Vince Clarke!

We are thrilled to announce our second annual Morbid Anatomy Museum Gala taking place April 12th at the venue of our generous sponsor The Bell House. We hope you will join us and actress Parker Posey for an exciting evening of dinner, cocktails generously supplied by our sponsor Hendrick's Gin, performances and special guests; an auction of one-of-a-kind art, objects, and experiences; and much more, all in support of The Morbid Anatomy Museum!

In addition to all this, VIP ticket holders will enjoy a champagne toast at Morbid Anatomy Museum—just a moment's walk from the Bell House—with honorary chair Parker Posey along with a private tour of our current exhibition with its curator Ryan Matthew Cohn of TV's Oddities. All guests will enjoy a fine catered meal, drinks, auction and performances, and are invited to stay for an afterparty featuring complimentary beer by sponsor Sixpoint Brewery and the DJ stylings of electronic music pioneer Vince Clarke.

Tickets are also available separately for those who wish to attend only the afterparty—an exciting night of music and drinks courtesy of Vince Clarke and sponsor Sixpoint Brewery!

We hope to see you there!

Second Annual Morbid Anatomy Museum Gala with Honorary Chair Parker Posey

Tuesday, April 12, 2016, 7 PM (6:30 for VIP)

$250 (Regular Ticket), $500 (VIP Ticket with champagne toast at The Museum); $2500 (Table for 5, includes VIP champagne toast); $5000 (Table for 10, includes VIP champagne toast) Tickets and more info here.

Gala Afterparty with DJ Set by Electronic Music Pioneer Vince Clarke and Complimentary Beer Courtesy of Sixpoint Brewery

Tuesday, April 12, 2016, 9 pm till late, $50. Tickets and more info here.

Image: Dance of Death, Bernt Notke 1463-66

Happy Valentine's Day from All of Us at Morbid Anatomy!

Happy Valentine's Day from all of us at Morbid Anatomy!

Top image: Sacred Heart of Jesus with Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Louis Gonzaga, José de Páez, Mexico, 1727-179

Bottom image: Husband and Wife Nobles, from Cycle of Scenes of Living Skeletons, Paolo Vincenzo Bonomini, (1757 – 1839)

Sign Petition to Save the the Wonderful Musée Depuytren of Paris!

We have just learned that one our favorite medical museums--The Musée Depuytren of Paris--is in danger of closing.

There is a petition being circulated to protest this closure; we have signed, and hope you will, too! You can do so by clicking here.