Bilateral hydronephrosis in a male patient with congenital urethral valves: specimens to show related disease in dilated kidney and distended ureter, obstructed by gross hypertrophied bladder. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1956.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1956.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache, pencil and black ink ; sheet 37.6 x 23.3 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 accompanied note gives patient history Bears number: 490/1956

Closed until 01/01/2041

Wellcome Collection 35723i

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.

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.