- Hardcover: 192 pages
- Publisher: BLAST BOOKS (Oct 7 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0922233241
- ISBN-13: 978-0922233243
- Product Dimensions: 28.5 x 23.6 x 2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 1.3 Kg
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #246,242 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Product Description
Home to over 20,000 mind-boggling anatomic specimens, plaster casts, wax models, and paintings, the Mutter Museum, founded in 1858, is part of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. This book features over 100 photographs by a select group of renowned photographers whose work appears in the award-winning Mutter Museum calendars. Highlights include a bust of an early-19th-century Parisian widow with a six-inch horn protruding from the forehead; the connected livers of Chang and Eng, the world-famous Siamese twins; the skeleton of a 7'6" giant from Kentucky; and a collection of 139 skulls showing anatomic variation among ethnic groups in central and eastern Europe. Historical photographs from the museum's archives, brief background texts about the collection, and an introductory essay on the museum are also included.
About the Author
Gretchen Worden is the Director of the Mutter Museum. The subject of a recent documentary, Smiling in a Jar, by Errol Morris, she is also past president of the Museum Council of Philadelphia and serves on the executive board of the Society of Civil War Surgeons.
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Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, a showcase for these wonderful images,
By
This review is from: The Mutter Museum: Of the College Of Physicians Of Philadelphia (Hardcover)
I have long been a fan and frequent visitor to the Mutter Museum, and the items in it's collection have served and continue to serve as inspiration for my work. Ms. Worden has been most generous in allowing me access to some of the 'behind the scenes' items I am delighted to find included in this book. Anyone who has come across one of the famous Mutter Museum calendars will be familiar with the beautiful photographs from the likes of Rosamond Purcell, Joel-Peter Witkin, Max Aquilera-Hellweg, etc. -- and if not, this is the ideal opportunity to experience them. However, for me it is the archival photos from the bowels (ahem!) of the Mutter's storage rooms that are the real treasures here -- many of which have never been published before. In spite of their generally more clinical nature, these photographs of patients and odd medical conditions often acheive a level of artistry equal to the efforts of the featured contemporary photographers. The images are complemented by an engaging preface and essay by Ms. Worden, discussing not only the reasons why artists are drawn to the Mutter's collections, but also how these 'pathological treasures' came together under the roof of the College of Physicians. If this book has a fault, it is that there isn't more of it! I am greatly looking forward to future volumes in what I hope will become long series.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews) 68 of 69 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, a showcase for these wonderful images,
By James G. Mundie - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Mutter Museum: Of the College Of Physicians Of Philadelphia (Hardcover)
I have long been a fan and frequent visitor to the Mutter Museum, and the items in it's collection have served and continue to serve as inspiration for my work. The late Gretchen Worden was most generous in allowing me access to some of the 'behind the scenes' items I am delighted to find included in this book.Anyone who has come across one of the famous Mutter Museum calendars will be familiar with the beautiful photographs from the likes of Rosamond Purcell, Joel-Peter Witkin, Max Aquilera-Hellweg, etc. -- and if not, this is the ideal opportunity to experience them. However, for me it is the archival photos from the bowels (ahem!) of the Mutter's storage rooms that are the real treasures here -- many of which have never been published before. In spite of their generally more clinical nature, these photographs of patients and odd medical conditions often acheive a level of artistry equal to the efforts of the featured contemporary photographers. The images are complemented by an engaging preface and essay by Ms. Worden, discussing not only the reasons why artists are drawn to the Mutter's collections, but also how these 'pathological treasures' came together under the roof of the College of Physicians. If this book has a fault, it is that there isn't more of it! Although Ms. Worden is no longer with us, I hope that someone else will step up to create future volumes in what I hope will become long series. There is certainly ample material in the Mutter collection yet to explore. 13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Museum as Photography Studio:Treaties with the Aberrant,
By Grady Harp - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Mutter Museum: Of the College Of Physicians Of Philadelphia (Hardcover)
This beautifully designed, researched and photographed monograph is one of the most interesting journeys you'll likely encounter in the volumes of art and photography books. Though not well known to the regular museum-visiting public, the Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia is a richly rewarding sanctuary for the many forms of medical aberrations that have been collected since the museum's founding in 1858. Housed in this museum are over 20,000 specimens, photographs, paintings and molds of patients and organs and remnants of the lives of people born with deformities, better described as variations from the norm. It is much to the credit of director Gretchen Worden that she not only preserved this fine collection, but that she had the foresight to invite many of our finest photographers to enter this domain of the bizarre and create formal portraits of the materials there contained.Devotees of medical history, as well as those fascinated by the people from the past who made their living as part of 'freak side shows' in a time less compassionate than now, will find in this book some of the best renderings of nature's spectrum of anomalies. Add to this plethora of model material the genius of such photographers as Joel Peter Witkin and the result is a collection of photographs so bizarre they defy credibility. But real they are, and each specimen is presented with dignity and quality of format. There are even descriptions of the etiology of some of the photographed abnormalites and a fine essay by Gretchen Worden, explaining the purpose of the museum, the monograph and the stimulus for the production of this fine body of photographs. There may be those that shy away from viewing variations from normal because of the backlash of the previous century's condemnation of 'voyeurism'. Rest assured that this is a volume that maintains the dignity of the body and does not sensationalize these variations as grotesqueries. Sensitivity prevails. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, March 05 17 of 20 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
truly tiresome photography,
By Sarah Munro - Published on Amazon.com
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This review is from: The Mutter Museum: Of the College Of Physicians Of Philadelphia (Hardcover)
The objects and images in Mutter Museum are obviously fascinating and I can see that even though most of the photographs of them in this book are truly tiresome.To quote another review I read on the book "the archival photos from ...the Mutter's storage rooms that are the real treasures here.... In spite of their generally more clinical nature, these photographs of patients and odd medical conditions often achieve a level of artistry equal to the efforts of the featured contemporary photographers. " I disagree. The old clinical photographs are far more interesting than the " featured contemporary photographers" Why? Because the ' featured contemporary photographers' just tried to hard to be interesting. They didn't let that objects etc speak for themselves. I don't need to see the photographers pet dog posed with the human foot in a jar. I don't want to look at the 'infant skeleton with club feet' with its feet artfully cut out of the frame. I want to look at a photograph of something as interesting a preserved head in focus...not shot in a meaningful out of focus way. |
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