Name: Where Dissection and Écorché Intersect
Start: 2025-11-13T18:00:00-06:00
End: 2025-11-13T20:00:00-06:00
Location: International Museum of Surgical Science

$Where Dissection and \u00c9corch\u00e9 Intersect$

Join us for a special presentation that explores the intersection perspectives from a Plastic Surgeon and an Instructor in Artistic Anatomy!
About this Event

Lecture:
Where Dissection and Écorché Intersect: Perspectives from a Plastic Surgeon and an Instructor in Artistic Anatomy

Melinda Whitmore, MFA

David Morris, MD

6:00pm-8:00pm
Free with RSVP
Event Photos

De Humani corporis fabrica. Jan Stephan van Calcar for Andreas Vesalius. 1543

“Écorché”, from the French word “flayed” refers to drawings or sculptures of the body with the skin removed. Dissections were common during the Renaissance. Illustrations of such dissections were important for explaining medical phenomenon; such illustrations have remained important for multiple other reasons. For figurative artists studying anatomy, using an écorché approach or sculpting a human form in clay from the inside out (ie. starting with the skeleton and adding musculature) had become common by the 19th century. To this day écorché remains an important component of teaching anatomy in rigorous art programs that focus on realistic, figurative work.

This discussion combines the perspectives of a plastic surgeon and an instructor in drawing, painting, and anatomy. Both have taught artistic anatomy at the medical school level. They will address the history of dissection as it relates to écorché and the relevance of each for the current student of art, medicine, or surgery.

Please join us for a this special lecture by Melinda Whitmore, MFA & David Morris, MD, presented as a part of The Artistry of Plastic Surgery exhibit.