Fatal dissecting aneurysm of aorta in a male patient with dyspnoea: section showing superior vena cava obstruction and ruptured aorta uncoiling. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1956.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1956.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache ; sheet 37.6 x 20.4 cm

Barbara Evelyn Nicholson (1906 – 1978) trained at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1923. She began her artistic career as a medical illustrator and was a founder member of the Medical Artists Association, where she is recorded as serving on an exhibition committee in October 1949. By 1951, she had illustrated G.F. Gibberd, A short textbook of midwifery (2nd ed., London: J. & A. Churchill, 1941) and Philip Wiles, Essentials of orthopaedics (London: J. & A. Churchill, 1949). The Medical Artists Association records last list her, in 1951. In the 1950s her focus moved to botanical subjects and from the late 1950s – 1970s she was a prolific botanical illustrator.

Typed accompanying note consists of a personal report of the case by the surgeon A. Barham Carter stating that he thought the patient had lung cancer originally. After sudden death, the aneurysm was found at autopsy Bears number: 481/1956

The watercolours and pen and ink drawings held by Wellcome Collection were painted by Barbara Nicholson at Ashford Hospital, Ashford, Middlesex, between 1946 and 1951, at the request of the surgeon Norman Matheson.

Wellcome Collection 35715i

Presented to the Wellcome Institute Library in 1987 by Ashford Postgraduate Medical Centre, as part of a collection of medical illustrations by Barbara E. Nicholson.