Quay Brothers Mütter Museum Film Premiere in Philadelphia, New York and Los Angeles This September!

I have some exciting news! The details for the premiere of Through the Weeping Glass--the Quay Brothers' new documentary based on the collections of books, instruments, and medical anomalies at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the Mütter Museum--have just been announced!

The film will launch with three epic premieres--one in Philadelphia at the Mütter Museum, one in New York at MoMA, and one in Los Angeles hosted by The Museum of Jurassic Technology. Each city's event will feature a moderated talk with the Quays, while the Mütter Philadelphia opening will also--excitingly!--be accompanied by an exhibition at the museum on the making of the film guest curated by MoMA's Barbara London.

Full details from the press release follow; tickets are, I am warned, selling fast, so act quickly if you want to attend! Hope to see you there.

Through the Weeping Glass: On the Consolations of Life Everlasting (Limbos & Afterbreezes in the Mütter Museum)
New Quay Brothers short film to premiere September 2011 in Philadelphia, New York, and Los Angeles

“To call the Quays’ work the most original and rapturously vivid image-making on the planet might sound like hyperbole until you see the films. . . .” —Michael Atkinson, Village Voice

Through the Weeping Glass: On the Consolations of Life Everlasting (Limbos & Afterbreezes in the Mütter Museum) is a documentary on the collections of books, instruments, and medical anomalies at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the Mütter Museum. This short film (running time: 31 minutes) is the first made by the internationally recognized Quay Brothers in the United States.

As Malcolm Jones (Newsweek) has commented, “the Mütter Museum teaches you indelibly how strange life can be, how unpredictable and various [and] will revise and enlarge your idea of what it is to be human.” The coupling of the Quay Brothers’ vision with the collections of the College’s Historical Medical Library and Museum has produced a riveting experience of contemplative set pieces exploring the College and Mütter Museum. Adding to the film’s visual strength is a powerful musical score by composer Timothy Nelson and a resonant voice-over by Derek Jacobi.

The film premieres in three locations in September 2011, with a moderated conversation with the artists:

• September 22, The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 6:30 PM (more here)
• September 24, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. 8:00 PM (more here)
• September 27, Cary Grant Theater, SONY Pictures Studios, hosted by The Museum of Jurassic Technology, Los Angeles, 8:00 PM (more here)

An exhibition guest curated by Barbara London, Associate Curator, Department of Media and Performance Art, The Museum of Modern Art, on the making of the film opens in September 2011 in the Mütter Museum of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Subsequent to the premiere screenings, the film will be available for purchase on DVD with an accompanying booklet.

ABOUT THE QUAY BROTHERS
Two of the world’s most original filmmakers, the Quay Brothers are identical twins who were born outside Philadelphia in 1947. The Quays studied illustration in Philadelphia before going on to the Royal College of Art in London, where they began making animated shorts in the 1970s. They have lived in London ever since.

They are best known for their classic 1986 film Street of Crocodiles, which filmmaker Terry Gilliam selected as one of the ten best animated films of all time. In 1994 they made their first foray into live-action feature-length filmmaking with Institute Benjamenta. The Quays’ work also includes set design for theatre and opera, including their 1998 Tony-nominated set designs for Ionesco’s The Chairs on Broadway. The Quays have also directed pop promos for His Name Is Alive, Michael Penn, Sparklehorse, 16 Horsepower, and Peter Gabriel (contributing to his celebrated “Sledgehammer” video), and have also directed ground-breaking commercials for, Honeywell Computers, ICI Wood, K. P. Skips, Nikon, BBC, Coca-Cola, Northern Rock, Dorritos, Roundup, Kellogs, Badoit water, Galaxy, MTV, Nikon, Murphy’s beer and Slurpee, amongst others.

In 2000 they made In Absentia, an award-winning collaboration with Karlheinz Stockhausen, as well as two dance films, Duet and The Sandman. In 2002 they contributed an animated dream sequence to Julie Taymor’s film Frida. The following year the Quays made four short films in collaboration with composer Steve Martland for a live event at the Tate Modern in London and in 2005 premiered their second feature film, The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes, at the Locarno Film Festival.

In addition to Through the Weeping Glass, the Quay Brothers’ other commissioned films over the past twenty years include Anamorphosis (1991), The Phantom Museum (2003), and Inventorium of Traces (2009).

ABOUT THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF PHILADELPHIA AND THE MÜTTER MUSEUM
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the oldest professional medical organization in the country, was founded in 1787 when twenty-four physicians gathered “to advance the science of medicine and to thereby lessen human misery.” Today more than 1,400 Fellows (elected members) continue to convene at the College and work towards better serving the public.

Throughout its two-hundred-year history, the College has provided a place for both medical professionals and the general public to learn about medicine as both a science and as an art. The College is home to the Historical Medical Library and the Mütter Museum, America’s finest museum of medical history, which displays its beautifully preserved collections of anatomical specimens, models, and medical instruments in a nineteenth-century setting. The museum helps the public understand the mysteries and beauty of the human body and to appreciate the history of diagnosis and treatment of disease.

With an attendance exceeding 105,000 today, the Museum has become internationally well known, has been featured in a documentary on the Discovery Channel, and is the subject of two best-selling books.

This project has been supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative.

You can find out more about the opening in Philadelphia by clicking here, New York by clicking here, and Los Angeles by clicking here. You can find out more about the film itself and the accompanying exhibition guest curated by MOMA's Barbara London by by clicking here.

All images above are frame grabs from the film.

Mütter Museum Masquerade Ball, Friday, March 11

The pleasure of your company is respectfully requested at the 3rd Annual Mütter Museum Masquerade Ball taking place on Friday, March 11th and commemorating the 200th birthday of the illustrious Mütter Museum founder Thomas Dent Mutter.

Full details follow; very much hope to see you there!

3rd Annual Mütter Masquerade Ball
Date: Friday, March 11
19 South 22nd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103
The Mütter Museum/College of Physicians of Philadelphia

Don't miss the 3rd Annual Mütter Masquerade Ball!

Join us for an evening marked by fabulous costumes, great food and drink, and a birthday cake befitting the founding benefactor of the Mütter Museum,
whose 200th birthday is March 11.

Whether you sport a Victorian ensemble, or a gilded Victorian mask, we encourage you to have fun and be creative. For those who choose the timeless fashion of cocktail attire, no worries, we will provide masks at the door.

TICKETS:
General Admission: $75
9:00pm - 12:30am
Masquerade dance party with live band and a DJ, hors d'oeuvres, "The Mütter" signature cocktail, and beer & wine bar.

VIP: $125
9:00pm - 12:30am
Exclusive access to VIP Lounge featuring the Alchemy Cocktail Lab, a full bar, and a generous buffet.
Includes a complimentary dance lesson the week of the Ball.
- Once your order has been processed, the College will contact you with registration information for the complimentary dance lesson.

The Sumptuous Feast: $250
7:00pm - 12:30am
Join us for the entire evening beginning with a cocktail reception, followed by a Victorian-inspired dinner, and full access to everything! (Black Tie/Masquerade)
Includes a complimentary dance lesson the week of the Ball.
- Once your order has been processed, the College will contact you with registration information for the complimentary dance lesson.

You can purchase tickets--and find out more information--by clicking here.

Mütter Museum Day of the Dead Party Today!

Today, the incomparable Mütter Museum of Philadelphia will be hosting an epic Day of the Dead party. Stop by at noon or four PM to catch me expounding on medical museums, memento mori, and morbidity as keynote speaker; stay for the party, complete with food, drink, music and sugar skulls!

Hope very much to see you there.

The Mütter Museum’s 3nd Annual Day of the Dead Festival
Come celebrate this traditional Mexican holiday with an all-day event at the Mütter Museum! Decorate sugar skulls, enjoy traditional food and drink, visit the Museum, hear from guest speaker, artist Joanna Ebenstein and see an exclusive show by local personality Grover Silcox!

- 10AM: Museum opens and sugar skull decorating begins
- 12PM and 4PM: Talk by Artist Joanna Ebenstein
- 5 - 6:30PM: Guided museum tour, exclusively for Friends of the Mütter
- 6:30 - 8PM: Exclusive performance by Grover Silcox

Sponsored by the Mütter Museum of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia

(NOTE: Registration is not required for daytime festivities and is free with Museum admission; registration IS required, with additional cost for admission, to Silcox production.)

For more information on the Mütter Museum 3rd Annual Day of the Dead Festival, click here.

Image: "The Mütter Museum : Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Human skulls, backroom; 19th Century" From Anatomical Theatre Exhibition

Upcoming Observatory Event: "Swallowed and Saved: The Chevalier Jackson Foreign Body Collection and the Art it Has Inspired," Saturday, October 16

My friend Michelle Enemark is presenting the following event at Observatory this Saturday; looks like it will be a good one!

Swallowed and Saved: The Chevalier Jackson Foreign Body Collection and the Art it Has Inspired
An illustrated reading by artist Lisa Wood and author Mary Cappello
Date: Saturday, October 16th
Time: 7:00 PM
Admission: $5

An American half-dollar. An unspent matchstick. A beloved miniature swan stowed in a biscuit tin. A beaded crucifix. Tooth roots shaped like a tiny pair of pants. A padlock. Scads of peanut kernels and scores of safety pins. A porcelain doll prised from a throat. A metallic letter Z. A toy goat and tin steering wheel. Frozen twigs. Penny wafers. A Perfect Attendance Pin.

One of the most popular attractions in Philadelphia’s Mutter Museum is the Chevalier Jackson Foreign Body Collection: a beguiling set of drawers filled with thousands of items that had been swallowed or inhaled, then extracted nonsurgically by a pioneering laryngologist using rigid instruments of his own design. How do people’s mouths, lungs, and stomachs end up filled with inedible things, and what do they become once arranged in Dr. Chevalier Jackson’s aura-laden cabinet? Animating the space between interest and terror, curiosity and dread, author Mary Cappello and artist Lisa Wood will stage an illustrated reading based on two distinct but companionate projects to have emerged from Jackson’s foreign body display: Wood’s thirty-three original assemblages (The Swallowing Plates) and Cappello’s nonfiction book, Swallow: Foreign Bodies, Their Ingestion, Inspiration and the Curious Doctor Who Extracted Them (The New Press). Like Jackson’s design and deft manipulation of endoscopic instruments, like his endoscopic illustrations and his scrupulous attention to the nature of each foreign body caught, Cappello and Wood’s work excavates the relationship between corporeality, desire, and the object world. Their dossier of images and of incantatory texts promises to combine the uncanny, the beautiful, and the informative.

Note: Several of Lisa Wood’s plates will be on sale and on view, and attendees will be treated to a sneak preview of Cappello’s book which appears this January 2011, as well as details regarding the re-design and grand re-opening of the Chevalier Jackson Foreign Body Exhibit in the Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Does every human being have one of these Things to show for himself in his life’s hereafter?: as if to say, here is what is left of me: what’s left of me is that-which-was-once-within-me.

Mary Cappello’s books include Night Bloom; Awkward: A Detour (a booklength essay on awkwardness that was a Los Angeles Times bestseller), and Called Back (a critical cancer memoir that won a ForeWord Book of the Year Award and an Independent Publishers Prize). Some of Cappello’s recent essaying addresses Gunther von Hagens’ bodyworlds exhibits (in Salmagundi); sleep, sound and the silence of silent cinema (in Michigan Quarterly Review); the psychology of tears (in Water~stone Review); and the uncanny dimensions of parapraxis and metalepsis (in Interim). A recipient of the Dorothea Lange/Paul Taylor Prize from Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies and the Bectel Prize for Educating the Imagination from Teachers and Writers Collaborative, Cappello is a former Fulbright lecturer at the Gorky Literary Institute (Moscow) and a professor of English and creative writing at the University of Rhode Island where she also teaches courses in Literature and Medicine. Swallow will appear in January from the New Press. Her latest book-length project on a single theme is a foray into sound and mood, tentatively titled In the Mood. For more information: www.awkwardness.org

Lisa Wood is a San Francisco based artist specializing in Victorian arts and crafts. Incorporating Victorian sensibilities into shadowboxes that memorialize the dead, dioramas that explore the hidden world of insects, mourning jewelry that captures the essence of the human spirit, and other curiosities that were inspired by what was collected, constructed and treasured at the time. This was an era when lingering disease and sudden death were inexplicable and everyday perils; an era when the very concepts of art and nature were challenged by technological innovations such as photography and medicine.

These fascinations join her work to the list of artists known as Victorian Revivalists.

Lisa sells her work to smaller boutiques and galleries as well as private collectors around the country. Her Swallowing Plate collection as well as her insect dioramas can be viewed at Gold Bug in Pasadena, the catalog is available at the Mutter Museum Store in Philadelphia.

For more information please visit: Lisa Wood Curiosities and Gold Bug.

To find out more, click here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

The Annual Mütter Museum Ball, Friday March 12, 2010, Tomorrow Night!

If you're free and in the Philadelphia area tomorrow night, why not spend the evening at the 2010 Annual Mütter Museum Ball? A staff member of the Mütter has assured me that the event will "very 'Mutterian'-- all Victorian and 19th-century inspired." All that, plus absinthe sponsorship and the encouragement of "festive, 19th-century inspired garb" for participants!" I so wish I could go! Full details follow:

VIP includes open bar, special hors d'oeuvres and access to the
VIP Vieux Carré Absinthe Lounge
Doors open at 7:30PM
$100

General includes beer & wine bar and hors d'oeuvres
Doors open at 8:30PM
$50

Featuring Philly's hottest DJ, Maria V!
Festive, 19th-century inspired garb encouraged!

Co-Sponsored by Vieux Carre Absinthe, Pennsylvania Hospital, Cephalon, American Exhibitions, Bones Clones, Inc. and GIANTmicrobes

Click here to find out more and purchase tickets. Click on invite to view larger more detailed version.

"Freaks of Nature: What Anomalies Tell Us About Development and Evolution", Lecture and Signing, Mütter Museum, September 11

I have just been alerted to an interesting looking event to take place at the Mütter Museum on September 11th at 6:30 PM. From the website:

Mark Blumberg will be coming to speak about his book, Freaks of Nature: What Anomalies Tell Us About Development and Evolution, published in 2009. Dr. Blumberg is a behavioral neuroscientist and professor at the University of Iowa. The lecture/reading will be followed by a book signing in the main lobby.

Book signing and reception follows program.

You can find out more, and register, by clicking here. You can also find out information about this event, and many others, on the nascent Morbid Anatomy Events Calendar. This calendar is still under development; I would love feedback and further event submissions. Click here to view calendar; email me here with submissions or comments.

Mütter Museum Director Robert Hicks Lecturing at Old Operating Theatre, London

This Tuesday August 4th at 6:30 P.M., Robert Hicks, director of the fabulous and amazing Mütter Museum, will be giving a presentation entitlted "Exquisite Corpses: Mysteries of the Mütter Museum" at London's Old Operating Theatre. Here are the full details:

Exquisite Corpses: Mysteries of the Mütter Museum
Images of post mortem human remains are fascinating and disquieting. They amuse children at Halloween and disturb adults when on display at museums.

Today’s omnipresent imagery of people doing everything at all times has not accustomed us to depictions of human mortality. The dead are speedily removed from view, and our direct contact with the dead is limited and controlled. Although mortal images can arouse empathy and may develop tolerance for a spectrum of human physical variation, other cultural voices argue for proscription and censure.

In this presentation, Robert Hicks explores our dialogue with post mortem human imagery by examining its relationship to politics and ownership of the dead. He incorporates perspectives drawn from anthropology, art criticism, history, museum curatorship, and criminal justice.

Robert D. Hicks, Ph.D. is the director of the Mütter Museum and Historical Library at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. He also directs the F. C. Wood Institute and holds the William Maul Measey Chair for the History of Medicine. Before coming to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Robert supervised exhibits, collections, and educational outreach as the Director of the Roy Eddleman Institute for Education and Interpretation at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia. He has worked with museum-based education, curatorship, and exhibits, primarily as a consultant to historic sites in Virginia. Additionally, he has served as a U.S. Naval officer and worked in criminal justice for over two decades.

I will definitely be attending; hope to see you there! Full info can be found by clicking here. Image from a long past photo trip to the Mütter; more can be found here.

Best Class in the World? "What Things Mean: The Material Culture of Science," July 2009

I just got word of what sounds to me like very possibly the best class in the world. Robert Hicks, director of that most wonderful of American museums the Mütter Museum, will be teaching a class this July for the continuing education department of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA called "What Things Mean: The Material Culture of Science." The class-- which appears to be open to all--will utilize the incredibly rich collections of, among other museums, the Mütter, to instruct pupils in the working methods and practice of material culture study.

Students in this class, which runs for 6 days from Tuesday July 14 through Thursday July 23, will have the rare opportunity of working directly with the collections and curators of three of Philadelphia's most interesting museums---the Mütter Museum, the American Philosophical Society, and the Chemical Heritage Foundation. They are invited to, as the class description explains, "investigate the history of science through [the] material culture of artifacts, images and specimens" as encountered in these collections. Instruction will take place via "guided discussions and exercises [...] conducted with museum curators and educators in an inquiry-based format that begins with examining the essential properties and characteristics of objects, followed by questions about their esthetic, symbolic, and sociological meanings."

Artifacts examined in the class--which will meet at the three museums on alternating days for a full 9:30-5 schedule--"may include scientific instruments, materials, machinery... anatomical specimens, models or simulations, manuscripts, correspondence, fine art, ...illustrations and other images, or personal memorabilia." Each student will complete a final project of their choice "based on any component of the collections examined."

The possibilities are endless. A study of pathological waxworks (see above, from the Mütter backroom)? An examination of an ancient natural history specimen from the American Philosophical Society? As I said: Best Class Ever!

Here is the full class description, as described by the syllabus:

"What Things Mean: The Material Culture of Science"
Center City Museums
Start Date: Tue July 14
Instructors : Robert Hicks, Museum Educators and Curators
Tue Jul 14, Wed Jul 15, Thu Jul 16: 9:30 am - 5:00 pm
Tue Jul 21, Wed Jul 22, Thu Jul 23: 9:30 am - 5:00 pm

Students investigate the history of science through its material culture of artifacts, images, and specimens. Over six days—two each at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (Mütter Museum), American Philosophical Society, and the Chemical Heritage Foundation—students will participate in guided discussions and practical exercises oriented to the collections of these institutions. Class exercises aim to demonstrate the value of artifact study as a means to investigate the history of science, technology, and medicine. Students will complete their own project based on any component of the collections examined, an object-study lesson plan that may be used to supplement classroom activities in history, science, social studies, or art classes. Guided discussions and exercises are conducted with museum curators and educators in an inquiry-based format that begins with examining the essential properties and characteristics of objects, followed by questions about their esthetic, symbolic, and sociological meanings.

Artifacts may include scientific instruments, materials, machinery, but the material culture of science includes anatomical specimens, models or simulations, manuscripts, correspondence, fine art (including scientific portraiture), illustrations and other images, or personal memorabilia. “The cultural analysis of artifacts requires students to probe for hidden beliefs, values, associations, and meanings. [David Pantalony, “What is it? Twentieth-century Artifacts out of Context,” History of Science Society Newsletter 37.3 (July 2008), p. 18.]

Guest speakers from the Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science member institutions may complement the discussions and exercises. Students’ grades are based on class participation, a final exam, and the lesson plan assignment.

No science or mathematical background is necessary for this course, but an aptitude for and interest in historical investigation is essential.

Find out more about the class and how to enroll by clicking here; you can find out yet more and read the full syllabus by clicking here. For those of you as-of-yet unfamiliar with the wonders of the amazing Mütter Museum, click here to visit their website. You can find out more about the other institutions, the American Philosophical Society and the Chemical Heritage Foundation, by clicking here and here, respectively.

I am incredibly jealous of all those who live nearer to Philadelphia and will be able to take this class; I will take this class some day in the future, if it is offered again, even if I have to stay in a hotel to do so! If any Morbid Anatomy readers do end up taking this class, please, send me a report!

Image: Backroom at the Mütter Museum, From Anatomical Theatre

And The Winner is...

This is a followup to the last Morbid Anatomy post about the unveiling of the Gretchen Worden portrait at the Mütter museum. As you might recall, Laura Lindgren offered to send a 2009 Mütter Museum calendar to the first Morbid Anatomy reader who correctly identified the instrument Gretchen holds in her hands in the portrait (see detail above). Well, the contest has been decided! Here is Laura's report:

In fact, we have TWO winners to the question "What is the instrument Gretchen holds in her hands in the portrait?"

Lana Thompson, author of The Wandering Womb was first to respond: "It’s a transurethral lithotripter."

And Christine Ruggere at Johns Hopkins Medical Library says, "I think that the instrument was used to crush bladder stones. It may be called a lithotrite. I think Gretchen demonstrated one once on the David Letterman show."

Indeed, the instrument is a lithotrite, used to crush calculi, specifically bladder stones; the transurethral lithotripter is also used for kidney stones.

Christine wins too for the added identification that Gretchen had demonstrated the litotrite in one of her three appearances on "The Late Show with David Letterman."

Congratulations to Lana and Christine--and thanks to all who ventured a guess!

Our runners up are Scott Moore of Phoom.com, who guessed: "I am able to only guess that it's early 19thC and has something to do with lithotomy."

And Mark Rowley of the superb site Cabinet of Art and Medicine ventured a few guesses, among them "a stone crusher."

By the way, I happened to find a Flickr site from Tyler Love with some illustrations from the Illustrated Manual of Operative Surgery and Surgical Anatomy, 1861, at the University at Buffalo showing such an instrument in use; see above for one example.

Thanks to all who responded!

Laura Lindgren
Publisher, Blast Books

As an addendum, might I add that you might want to go check out the other wonderful images in Tyler Love's History of Medicine Collection @ UB Flickr collection; to do so, click here.

Mütter 150 Celebration: Gretchen Worden Unveiled

This following is a guest report by Laura Lindgren of Blast Books. She is the publisher, editor, art director, and designer of the Mütter Museum books and calendars and graced us with a presentation at the Morbid Anatomy Library the second of January.

Mütter 150 Celebration: Gretchen Worden Unveiled

A hundred and fifty years ago the College of Physicians of Philadelphia completed the agreement with Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter to acquire his personal teaching "museum," which joined the College's existing cabinet of pathological specimens from Dr. Isaac Parrish to become The Mütter Museum, which opened in 1863. That's right--the sesquicentennial of the founding of the Mütter Museum! A lively celebration was held at the College last Friday night, January 9.

One highlight of the evening was the unveiling of the classic oil portrait commissioned by the College of the Mütter Museum's beloved late director, Gretchen Worden [see top image]. As many Morbid Anatomy readers know, Gretchen devoted her entire professional career of twenty-nine years to the Mütter Museum and the College until her untimely death at age fifty-six in 2004.

Following a cocktail reception in the College's elegant Marble Rotunda, Dr. George Wohlreich, Director and CEO of the College, spoke warmly about Gretchen and the impact of her many achievements with the Museum. Artist Alexandra Tyng [center image, with portrait] spoke about coming to know Gretchen by way of abundant reference materials and fond recollections from friends. Missing from the unveiling, naturally, was Gretchen--or was she? As the burgundy drape descended from the portrait and the audience gasped in astonishment, a wine glass toppled over from a table in the center of the rotunda and smashed on the floor. "Mazeltov!" shouted Paul Stridick, a friend of Gretchen since 1975. And J Bazzel confirmed: yes, it was a glass of "the cheap house red"--always her preference.

A Victorian dinner for those who had purchased tickets followed the portrait unveiling, in Thomson Hall, concluding with Dr. Robert Hicks, the new Director of the Mütter Museum, speaking about upcoming exhibitions he has planned beginning in 2011 for the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War, and he presented a few Civil War items from the Museum for viewing, including a kit of gleaming surgical instruments.

Meanwhile opulent Mitchell Hall upstairs--famous for its walls lined with majestic portraits of leading august physicians and its grand podium--had been transformed into a far-out freak-out disco replete with lighted dance floors [see bottom image], and people partied like there was no tomorrow!

Fortunately tomorrow came after all--here's to all the tomorrows in the Mütter Museum's next 150 years!

The College will hold another celebration when the portrait is officially installed in the Worden Gallery in the Museum. Meantime, I will send a Mütter Museum 2009 calendar to the first Morbid Anatomy reader who correctly identifies the instrument Gretchen holds in her hands in the portrait. Let's hear from you! Email responses to morbidanatomy@gmail.com.

Laura Lindgren
Publisher, Blast Books

To see more photos from the event, visit the Morbid Anatomy 150th Anniversary Flickr set. For more about the Mütter museum, see these recent Morbid Anatomy posts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) or visit the museum website.

Reminder! Mütter Museum 2009 Calendar Release Party, Brooklyn, NY; TOMORROW! January 2, 7:00 PM

Just a reminder! Tomorrow, January 2nd, The Morbid Anatomy Library will be ringing in the new year with a release party for the 2009 Mütter Museum Calendar!

The event will take place at Proteus Gowanus Interdisciplinary Gallery and Reading Room in Brooklyn, New York at 7:00 PM. Admission is free, calendars will be available for sale, the Morbid Anatomy Library will be open for visitation, and Blast Books publisher/Mütter Museum Calendar designer and art director Laura Lindgren will be presenting a slide-illustrated lecture.

Hope you can make it!

For more about the calendar, click here. Click here to download PDF invitation. And here is where you can find information that will help you find your way to Proteus Gowanus.

Image from the 2009 Calender: What Lies Beneath © 2004 Max Aguilera-Hellweg
Oil portrait (1937) of Willis Fastnacht Manges, M.D. (1876–1936), by Benedict Anton Osnis (1872–1941), with a section of skull from the Matthew Henry Cryer, D.D.S., M.D. (1840–1921), collection for study of the internal anatomy of the face. With Dr. Charles Lester Leonard (1861–1913), a martyr to radiology, Manges was a founder of the Philadelphia Roentgen Ray Society.

Mütter Museum 2009 Calendar Release Party, Proteus Gowanus Gallery and Reading Room, January 2, 7:00 PM

From the invitation:

Friday, January 2, 2009, 7:00 p.m.

Morbid Anatomy Library celebrates the publication of
Mütter Museum
2009 Calendar

Blast Books publisher Laura Lindgren gives an illustrated talk about her twenty-two-year association with the renowned Mütter Museum of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, joining the art of photography and medical history.

Laura Lindgren art directed and produced eight wall calendars featuring contemporary photographs by artists Max Aguilera-Hellweg, Rosamond Purcell, Arne Svenson, William Wegman, Joel-Peter Witkin, and others, of the famed museum’s collections. She edited, designed, and published two books, Mütter Museum by Gretchen Worden, in 2002, and Mütter Museum Historic Medical Photographs, in 2007, and has curated numerous exhibitions of Mütter Museum photographs that have traveled nationwide, as well as two Mütter exhibitions with Mütter objects and photographs—one at The Museum of Jurassic Technology in L.A., in 1994, and one at the now-defunct Thread Waxing Space in downtown Manhattan in 1995–1996.

The foundation of the Mütter Museum, one of the last nineteenth-century medical museums, dates to 1856, when Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter, a professor of surgery at Jefferson Medical College, wrote to The College of Physicians of Philadelphia that ill health was forcing him to resign his post and that he wished to offer the College guardianship of the anatomic and pathological materials he had collected for his own personal teaching “museum.” The deed of gift was completed a hundred and fifty years ago, January 9, 1859.

For more about the calendar, click here. Click here to download PDF invitation. And here is where you can find information that will help you find your way to Proteus Gowanus.

Hope to see you there!

The Mütter Museum Calendar is Back!

At long last, after a 6 year hiatus, the beloved Mütter Museum calendar has returned, just in time to celebrate the Mütter Museum's sesquicentennial.

The 2009 calendar is the continuation of those of years past, featuring an assortment of gorgeous photographs by an array of artists, all of them featuring objects found in the holdings of Philadelphia's wonderful Mütter Museum. Many of the artists included in this installment will be familiar to fans of previous calendars and the The Mutter Museum book, such as Rosamond Purcell, Max Aguilera-Hellweg, and William Wegman.

The Mütter Museum calendar was my introduction--as a sheltered, history-hungry California youth--to the wonderful, uncanny world of medical museums; Laura Lindgren of Blast Books tells me that she's already at work on the 2010 calendar, so it looks as if this 2009 edition is, happily, the first of many new calendars to come. Hooray for that!

The Mütter Museum calendar and two Mütter Museum books are published by Blast Books. You can purchase a copy of the calendar here.

"Extraordinary Bodies: Mutter Museum Photographs" Exhibition Opening

Last night was the opening for "Extraordinary Bodies: Mütter Museum Photographs" at the Mütter Museum. Above are some images of the event and exhibition; view more here. Or better yet--take a trip to the Mütter to see it with your own eyes--you have until the end of the year. Trust me--its worth it! If you need more persuasion: (from the Mütter Museum webpage:)

Curated by Laura Lindgren. The historical bond between photographers and medicine carries forward to the present day with Extraordinary Bodies: Mütter Museum Photographs, an exhibition that presents more than a decade of work by sixteen contemporary fine-art photographers. Originally curated to coincide with the publication of Mütter Museum, this exhibition has traveled nationally since 2002 and now comes home for presentation for the first time in the Mütter Museum's own gallery. The works in this exhibition find beauty not in conventional forms, but in the internal marvels revealed in the Museum's specimens and medical models. The artists have been drawn to explore the enigma of the body, whether normal or deformed, broken, or disfigured, to create visual metaphors for the human condition. The exhibition includes photographs by Shelby Lee Adams, Max Aguilera-Hellweg, Gwen Akin & Allan Ludwig, Candace diCarlo, Dale Gunnoe, Steven Katzman, Mark Kessell, Scott Lindgren, Olivia Parker, Rosamond Purcell, Richard Ross, Ariel Ruiz i Altaba, Harvey Stein, Arne Svenson, William Wegman, and Joel-Peter Witkin, and a selection of historic photographs from the Museum's collection...