Foetus: five figures, with one figure of viscera. Pen and ink drawing by Joyce Cutler Shaw, 1993.

[San Diego, California], 1993.

1 drawing : pen and ink on cotton ; cotton 110 x 146 cm

₅ 1993. Joyce Cutler Shaw Lettering on back: "hysteria, hysterikas, hysteria, hysterectomy ... hysterikas in ancient Greece. It was a suffering in the womb. A suffering in medieval texts. Body parts are individual with animal identities, with ills and cures. No woman in pictures. A woman's uterus disturbed is cured by pregnancy. Is it prophesy or continuity when the abdomen becomes a theatre, becomes a theatre." On right breast, "'I am what surrounds me' Wallace Stevens said." On hem, "No woman ... pictures. Even medical films of birth only boundless containing space as if the fetus could evolve itself."

Drawn on the front of a white laboratory coat, with inscriptions on the front and back. Created as part of a group of drawings called "The anatomy lesson" executed by Joyce Cutler Shaw while artist in residence at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, 1992-1994

Joyce Cutler Shaw, 'The anatomy lesson: the body, technology and empathy', Leonardo, 1994, 27: 29-38

Wellcome Collection 43770i

Copyright Joyce Cutler Shaw 1993. The copyright holder has granted a licence to the Wellcome Trust to reproduce the work under certain circumstances