The surgical art of Barbara Hepworth and the Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams foundation

Abstract The Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams Foundation, a major medical research foundation in Melbourne, holds two paintings by the celebrated British sculptor and artist Dame Barbara Hepworth. It recently acquired the second painting by her depicting the Foundation's nominal patron, Garnett Passe, performing a tonsillectomy. These works are two of a large series of surgical paintings she made in the years 1947 to 1949. This article gives an account of Barbara Hepworth and the surgical series of paintings and her relationship to Garnett Passe, the Australian ENT surgeon and Norman Capener, the British orthopaedic surgeon who introduced her into this subject. Barbara Hepworth's meeting with these two surgeons produced one of the most remarkable series of surgical paintings and drawings ever produced in Western Art.