MUSEUM OF LONDON

DEATH DRAWING @ MUSEUM OF LONDON, THURS 28 MARCH 2013, part of ‘Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men’ exhibition events programme.

We were thrilled to bits to be invited to take our drawing salon into the Museum of London and be inspired by the fantastically chilling, informative and fascinating dark underworld of 19th century surgery and grave-robbing in London. Whilst not 100% historically, or anatomically, correct by any stretch of the imagination, we instead were inspired by the exhibition (which myself, Linz and Ava visited to draw ideas for the salon several times) and let our imaginations run wild with this rich, gruesome theme.

We presented two resurrection men characters, Crabb and Bonesy, who shared a lesson in how to best source bodies and sell them on for dissection in London’s medical schools. Two fantastic Art Macabre model debuts (though one will be a familiar face from the other side of the sketchbook for salon regulars). The scoundrel pair gave a fresh corpse up to the dissection table, to be sliced up by our very own Dr Scops, skilled butcher (I mean, doctor), who extracted the biggest, bloodiest heart and liver that Art Macabre has ever seen. Respect to Jackie for not squirming as she was made to hold her own dripping organs!

We also had a skeleton (who shall be making many appearances at salons from now on, we call him Stanley) to inspire some anatomically accurate sketches, and our very own Ava Iscariot as Anatomical Venus, a very life-like wax-work figure I am sure you’ll agree. There were some fantastic sketches and such a good atmosphere, as people could draw our scenes fresh from seeing the real life artefacts in the exhibition. We’d love to go back to the Museum one day soon, for another relevant exhibition event. If you’ve not seen the exhibition yet, go whilst you can!

Thanks to David Geewai Ho for the photographs capturing the night. You can see more of his work on his blog: http://geewaiho.blogspot.co.uk/

All photos owned by Art Macabre 2012.