Medical History as Fine Art in American Mural Painting of the 1930s

To illuminate popular notions of medical progress during the inter-war era, this article examines four large mural projects depicting medical history. Aside from portraits of individual medical heroes, such as Pasteur and Lister, artists also created imagery strongly contrasting traditional and modern medicine in general. This analysis features the works of four stylistically distinct artists (Bernard Zakheim, Charles Alston, William C. Palmer, and Victor Arnautoff), whose 1930s murals may be viewed today in San Francisco, New York City (Harlem and Queens), and Palo Alto, California. These murals are significant works of art in themselves, and they form an unusual group of special interest to historians because they took on an uncommon subject for the fine arts - the history of medicine - rather than what had long been the far more common portrayal of medicine by artists, namely contemporary medical scenes from their own era.