Renal pelvis cancer in a 59-year old woman with haematuria: surgical specimen sections showing tumour growing out into venal vein. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1949.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1949.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache ; sheet 13.6 x 31.5 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.

<...> surgical specimen 614/49, carcinoma of renal pelvis growth spreading out from pelvis and involving renal vein, right kidney Lettering inscribed in black ink, typed accompanying note with patient history describes the tumour as a palpable mass in right loin. Urogram, radiograph and nephrectomy results identified the cancer as squamous carcinoma. Carincoma of the left bronchus was also discovered. After a pneumonectomy, the patient died with hepatic and cerebral metastases in January 1950 Bears number: 164/1949

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 33255i

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.