have long fascinated artists working in every medium of art. Mutter Museum presents the work of a
distinguished group of photographers who have been drawn to explore the body stripped of its superficial
coverings down to its inner realities. There is real beauty beneath the surface both in life, as revealed
by the surgeon's scalpel, and in death, as revealed by the pathologist's or anatomist's knife. The
contemporary photographs in this book, combined with powerful images from the Museum's historical
photography collection, stretch the boundaries to find beauty not in its conventional form, but in
its opposite: the deformed, the broken, the disfigured body of those who suffered physical abnormality,
trauma, or destructive disease. There is a terrifying beauty as well in the spirits of those who endured
nature's challenges to human life and to medical understanding.
"Superb . . . Mutter Museum teaches you indelibly how strange life can be, how unpredictable and various.
The [photographs], sometimes ghastly, sometimes heartbreaking, are mysteriously mesmerizing [and] will
revise and enlarge your idea of what it is to be human."
~ Newsweek
"The images have an almost classical quality . . . gorgeous and repulsive at once."
~ The New Yorker
"This is a book of hauntingly beautiful images. Only magnificent photographs like these can do
justice to the uniqueness of the Mutter Museum, a place of wonder and an unparalleled collection
that startles the imagination while it widens a visitor's sense of our shared humanity."
~ Sherwin B. Nuland, M.D., author of How We Die
In Memoriam: The author of this book, Gretchen Worden (1947-2004), who was the curator of the Mutter
Museum for over two decades, passed away on August 2, 2004 after a brief illness. The book stands
as a crowning achievement in her exemplary life.
PLEASE NOTE: This item is special ordered, and has a delivery time
of about one to two weeks.
Please email us with any questions prior to ordering or to inquire about expedited shipping." class="pin-it-button" count-layout="horizontal">Pin It
The Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia" The aesthetics of the living body
have long fascinated artists working in every medium of art. Mutter Museum presents the work of a
distinguished group of photographers who have been drawn to explore the body stripped of its superficial
coverings down to its inner realities. There is real beauty beneath the surface both in life, as revealed
by the surgeon's scalpel, and in death, as revealed by the pathologist's or anatomist's knife. The
contemporary photographs in this book, combined with powerful images from the Museum's historical
photography collection, stretch the boundaries to find beauty not in its conventional form, but in
its opposite: the deformed, the broken, the disfigured body of those who suffered physical abnormality,
trauma, or destructive disease. There is a terrifying beauty as well in the spirits of those who endured
nature's challenges to human life and to medical understanding.
"Superb . . . Mutter Museum teaches you indelibly how strange life can be, how unpredictable and various.
The [photographs], sometimes ghastly, sometimes heartbreaking, are mysteriously mesmerizing [and] will
revise and enlarge your idea of what it is to be human."
~ Newsweek
"The images have an almost classical quality . . . gorgeous and repulsive at once."
~ The New Yorker
"This is a book of hauntingly beautiful images. Only magnificent photographs like these can do
justice to the uniqueness of the Mutter Museum, a place of wonder and an unparalleled collection
that startles the imagination while it widens a visitor's sense of our shared humanity."
~ Sherwin B. Nuland, M.D., author of How We Die
In Memoriam: The author of this book, Gretchen Worden (1947-2004), who was the curator of the Mutter
Museum for over two decades, passed away on August 2, 2004 after a brief illness. The book stands
as a crowning achievement in her exemplary life.
PLEASE NOTE: This item is special ordered, and has a delivery time
of about one to two weeks.
Please email us with any questions prior to ordering or to inquire about expedited shipping.
