The Gift of Life: Recent Paintings by Sir Roy Calne (catalog with essays)

• Published in: JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association Vol. 268; no. 6; pp. 734 - 735
• Main Author: Liechty, R. Dale
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Medical Association 12-08-1992
• ISSN: 0098-7484; 1538-3598
• DOI: 10.1001/jama.1992.03490060066019

A blend of science and art, The Gift of Life tells the story of Roy Calne, pioneer British transplant surgeon and artist. Only 70 pages long and with less text than the typical JAMA article is this catalog of Calne's paintings. (All proceeds go to the Children's Liver Fund at the University of Cambridge.)Four countrymen—a medical editor and historian, a psychiatrist, an art curator, and the renowned artist John Bellany—pool their talents in a minibiography. But The Gift of Life is much more. Its pages sparkle with the vivid colors of Calne's paintings, from a still life to the icy, stark reality of patients recovering from liver transplantations.What motivated this gifted surgeon to become an artist? Why did Calne, at the peak of his surgical career, commit himself to the brush and easel? Throughout medical school and his early years as a surgeon, Calne painted and sketched, although