Dissecting aortic aneurysm in a 60-year old man with fatal posterior cardiac infarction: (a) section of collapsed heart and (b) pen and ink sketch of abdominal aorta showing large clot, burst into the posterior mediastinium. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1955.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1955.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache and black ink ; sheet 24.4 x 26.9 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.

Heart, start of dissecting aneurysm, large blood clot, dissecting to within two inches of bification of a<bdominal> aorta, abdominal aorta, diagram of dissecting aneurysm of aota, half full size Lettering inscribed in black ink, typed accompanying note with patient history notes an old posterior infarction, seven years previous. Bears number: 446/1955

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 35420i

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.