Gangrene of lower limbs, with complete ischaemia in a 29-year old woman with a tumour of the heart: detail sketches showing discolouration of abdomen and legs, anterior view. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1952.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1952.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache ; sheet 20.2 x 23.1 cm

Barbara Evelyn Nicholson (1906 – 1978) trained at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1923. She began her artistic career as a medical illustrator and was a founder member of the Medical Artists Association, where she is recorded as serving on an exhibition committee in October 1949. By 1951, she had illustrated G.F. Gibberd, A short textbook of midwifery (2nd ed., London: J. & A. Churchill, 1941) and Philip Wiles, Essentials of orthopaedics (London: J. & A. Churchill, 1949). The Medical Artists Association records last list her, in 1951. In the 1950s her focus moved to botanical subjects and from the late 1950s – 1970s she was a prolific botanical illustrator.

One day after admission Lettering inscribed in black ink, typed accompanying note with patient history describes death caused by sudden aortic occlusion from embolism, which arose from a myxoma in the left atrium Bears number: 281/1952

The watercolours and pen and ink drawings held by Wellcome Collection were painted by Barbara Nicholson at Ashford Hospital, Ashford, Middlesex, between 1946 and 1951, at the request of the surgeon Norman Matheson.

Wellcome Collection 34424i

Presented to the Wellcome Institute Library in 1987 by Ashford Postgraduate Medical Centre, as part of a collection of medical illustrations by Barbara E. Nicholson.