Medicine and Art: (Steady) Eye & Hand

individual

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INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

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group

Barbara Hepworth, Reconstruction, 1947 © BownessHepworth Estate / Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London

"In 2012, the NHS is threatened, its future uncertain. ... Hepworth was a Labour voter - of course she was. In these drawings, she reveals her egalitarian values. Work is goodness: she sees her own work as a sculptor reflected in the steady eye and hand of the surgeon. In one drawing he even seems to wield a hammer and chisel. But this is not mere artistic self-consciousness. The work being done in these pictures saves lives; Hepworth believes her art, too, can heal souls." p.18.

My source:
Jonathan Jones (2012) A cut above, The Guardian, Arts. 25.10.12, p.18.

Hammers and chisels are found in operating theatres and wielded by female surgeons too. The exhibition long finished, I can't believe* that I have held onto to this page from The Guardian for almost six years. I must visit Wakefield.

*others can...