This research guide was created in 2022 by Sarah Sherman Clark and is managed by the Getty Library.
Author: Monique Kornell
Additional links and information may be added over time.
Please send any additions, corrections, or other suggestions to reference@getty.edu.
A select bibliography of books, articles, exhibition catalogs, and online exhibitions related to anatomy and art.
Bridson, Gavin D. R., and James J. White. Plant, Animal and Anatomical Illustration in Art and Science: A Bibliographical Guide from the 16th Century to the Present Day. Winchester, UK: St. Paul’s Bibliographies, 1990.
Carlino, Andrea. Paper Bodies: A Catalogue of Anatomical Fugitive Sheets, 1538–1687. Translated by Noga Arikha. London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1999.
Choulant, Ludwig. History and Bibliography of Anatomic Illustration. First edition originally published 1852. Rev. ed., translated by Mortimer Frank. New York: Schuman’s, 1945.
Cushing, Harvey. A Bio-Bibliography of Andreas Vesalius. 2nd ed. Hamden, CT: Archon, 1962.
Duval, Mathias, and Édouard Cuyer. Histoire de l’anatomie plastique: Les maîtres, les livres et les écorchés. Paris: Société française d’éditions d’art, 1898.
Graciano, Andrew, ed. Visualizing the Body in Art, Anatomy, and Medicine since 1800: Models and Modeling. New York: Routledge, 2019.
Herrlinger, Robert. History of Medical Illustration from Antiquity to 1600. Translated by Graham Fulton-Smith. New York: Editions Medicina Rara, 1970.
Joly, Morwena. La leçon d’anatomie: Le corps des artistes de la Renaissance au romantisme. Paris: Hazan, 2008.
Kemp, Martin. “‘The Mark of Truth’: Looking and Learning in Some Anatomical Illustrations from the Renaissance and Eighteenth Century.” In Medicine and the Five Senses, edited by W. F. Bynum and Roy Porter, 85–121. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Kusukawa, Sachiko. Picturing the Book of Nature: Image, Text, and Argument in Sixteenth-Century Human Anatomy and Medical Botany. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.
Laurenza, Domenico. Art and Anatomy in Renaissance Italy: Images from a Scientific Revolution. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012.
Longo, Lawrence D., and Lawrence P. Reynolds. Wombs with a View: Illustrations of the Gravid Uterus from the Renaissance through the Nineteenth Century. Switzerland: Springer, 2016.
Margócsy, Dániel. “From Vesalius through Ivins to Latour: Imitation, Emulation and Exactly Repeatable Pictorial Statements in the Fabrica.” Word & Image 35, no. 3 (2019): 315–33.
Massey, Lyle. “Pregnancy and Pathology: Picturing Childbirth in Eighteenth-Century Obstetric Atlases.” Art Bulletin 87, no. 1 (March 2005): 73–91.
Putscher, Marielene. Geschichte der medizinischen Abbildung: Von 1600 bis zur Gegenwart. Munich: Heinz Moos, 1972.
Rifkin, Benjamin A., Michael J. Ackerman, and Judith Folkenberg. Human Anatomy: Depicting the Body from the Renaissance to Today. London: Thames & Hudson, 2006.
Roberts, K. B., and J. D. W. Tomlinson. The Fabric of the Body: European Traditions of Anatomical Illustration. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
Röhrl, Boris. History and Bibliography of Artistic Anatomy: Didactics for Depicting the Human Figure. Hildesheim: Olms, 2000.
Cazort, Mimi, Monique Kornell, and K. B. Roberts. The Ingenious Machine of Nature: Four Centuries of Art and Anatomy. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1996.
Ciardi, Roberto Paolo, and Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi. Immagini anatomiche e naturalistiche nei disegni degli Uffizi: Secc. XVI e XVII. Gabinetto disegni e stampe degli Uffizi, vol. 60. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1984.
Comar, Philippe, ed. Figures du corps: Une leçon d’anatomie à l’École des Beaux-Arts. Paris: Beaux-Arts de Paris, 2008.
Karp, Diane R., ed. Ars Medica: Art, Medicine, and the Human Condition; Prints, Drawings, and Photographs from the Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1985.
Kemp, Martin, and Marina Wallace. Spectacular Bodies: The Art and Science of the Human Body from Leonardo to Now. London: Hayward Gallery, 2000.
Kennedy, Brian P., and Davis Coakley, eds. The Anatomy Lesson: Art and Medicine. Dublin: National Gallery of Ireland, 1992.
Kornell, Monique. Flesh and Bones: The Art of Anatomy. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2022.
Olmi, Giuseppe, ed. Rappresentare il corpo: Arte e anatomia da Leonardo all’Illuminismo. Bologna: Bononia University Press, 2004.
Petherbridge, Deanna, and Ludmilla Jordanova. The Quick and the Dead: Artists and Anatomy. London: Royal College of Art, 1997; enlarged version as Corps à vif: Art et anatomie. Geneva: Département Municipal des Affaires Culturelles, 1998.
Rodari, Florian, ed. Anatomie de la couleur: L’invention de l’estampe en couleurs. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 1996.
Sappol, Michael. Dream Anatomy. Bethesda, MD: National Library of Medicine, 2006.
Slipp, Naomi, et al. Teaching the Body: Artistic Anatomy in the American Academy, from Copley, Rimmer, and Eakins to Contemporary Artists. Boston: Boston University Art Gallery at the Stone Gallery, 2013.
The Anatomy of Gender: Arts of the Body in Early Modern Europe. Evanston, Northwestern University, The Block Museum of Art, January 3 – March 12, 2006.
The Body Inside and Out: Anatomical Literature and Art Theory. Washington, National Gallery of Art, July 24, 2010 – January 23, 2011.
Depicting Anatomy: The Hunt for Unalloyed Reality. London, Royal College of Surgeons of England, 2015.
Dream Anatomy. Bethesda, National Library of Medicine, October 9, 2002 – July 21, 2003.
Exhibiting Anatomy: A Curators' Roundtable. A roundtable discussion from December 5, 2019, about the history of anatomy and its public display with curators Katie Birkwood (Royal College of Physicians), Nathan Fils (Yale Center for British Art) and Annette Wickham (Royal Academy of Arts), moderated by Keren Hammerschlag.
The Human Body in Anatomical Texts from the 16th to 21st Centuries. Durham, Duke University, April 6 – July 17, 2011. An exhibition on flap anatomies.
Imaging/Imagining the Human Body. Chicago, University of Chicago, March 25 – June 20, 2014.
Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist. Inside his Mind, Inside the Body. London, Royal Collection Trust, The Queen’s Gallery, May 3 – October 7, 2012.
Teaching and Learning Anatomy: a 500 Year History. Philadelphia, Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
Thinking 3D: Visualizing the Brain from the Renaissance to the Present, Nashville, Vanderbilt University, The Vanderbilt History of Medicine Collections, September 12 – October 11, 2019.
Under the Skin: Anatomy, Art and Identity. London, Royal College of Physicians, October 10, 2019 – January 2021.