Medicine and healthcare have enjoyed a close relationship with art for many centuries.

Leonardo's study of anatomy, originally pursued for his training as an artist, had grown by the 1490s into an independent area of research. Over the following two decades, he did practical work in anatomy on the dissection table in Milan, then at hospitals in Florence and Rome, and in Pavia, where he collaborated with the physician-anatomist Marcantonio della Torre. By his own count Leonardo dissected 30 corpses in his lifetime.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica

Start exploring Leonardo's anatomical studies in our Anatomists exhibition.

Son of a surgeon, Jacopo Berengario da Carpi assisted his father  in surgical work, and his surgical skills became the basis of his later work as a physician. Berengario came under the tutelage of the great humanist printmaker Aldo Manuzio in his late teens. Berengario attended university in Bologna receiving his degree in medicine in 1489.  He made several important advances in anatomy including the first anatomical text augmented by illustrations.  Anatomia Carpi  emphasized the sensory over textual versions of the truth based on his own  experience in dissection. 

Source: History and bibliography of anatomic illustration in its relation to anatomic science and the graphic arts

 Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a  a Dutch draughtsman, painter, and printmaker. His works depict a wide range of style and subject matter including anatomy lessons.

Source: Martin, "Portraits of Doctors by Rembrandt and Rubens", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 130, No. 1 (Mar., 1986), pp. 7-20.

 Eakins was an American painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He painted several hundred portraits depicting prominent intellectuals of Philadelphia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a large number of whom were surgeons and physicians. Some of his works brought the portrait out of the drawing room and into the  surgical amphitheaters of his beloved hometown.

Source:  Werbel,Thomas Eakins: Art, Medicine, and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia 

French physician and painter Dr. Georges-Alexandre Chicotot was one of the first radiologists of the world. He was trained as a painter at L'école de Beaux Arts in Paris and made his Salon debut in 1880. He continued to exhibit his genre paintings. Dr. Chicotot started painting medical scenes in 1904 primarily for documentary reasons. In his work, the viewer's attention is often focused on medical instruments and their use. 

Source: Bordin & D'Ambrosio, Medicine in Art

Start exploring Chicotot's work in our Physician Painters exhibition.

A painter and a physician, Dr. Hikmet Hamdi was the founder of the Sıhhi Müze, Ottoman Empire's first health and medicine museum. Dr. Hamdi dedicated his career to produce works of art educating the public on health matters, especially on hygiene and infectious diseases and . In his Istanbul studio, he also offered fine arts training to fellow physicians.

Start exploring Hamdi's work in our Physician Painters exhibition.

Following the hospitalization of her daughter Sarah for osteomyelitis in 1944, Hepworth developed a friendship with Norman Capener, the surgeon who treated Sarah at the Princess Elizabeth Orthopedic Hospital in Exeter. Through this friendship, Hepworth was invited to witness a variety of surgical procedures at Exeter and the London Clinic. Over a two-year period, 1947–1949, Hepworth produced around 80 works within the series. As well as pencil, ink and chalk drawings, many were executed in both pencil and oil paint on board. 

Source: The Hepworth Wakefield Gallery

Start exploring Hepworth's work in our Operating Theatre exhibition.

First published in 1967, A Fortunate Man is the collaborative work of English art critic John Berger and the Swiss photographer Jean Mohr. The book tells the story of a country doctor, John Sassall through text and photographs.

British photographer and writer, Jo Spence produced a series of self-portraits about her own fight with breast cancer. Depicting various stages of her breast cancer to subvert the notion of an idealized female form, her work inspired projects in 'photo therapy', a means of using the medium to work on psychological health. 

Sources: Spence, Putting Myself in the Picture and Spence, The Final Project

Start exploring the work of Jo Spence in our Women's Health in Art exhibition.