From Plastic Surgery to National Identity.

Abstract

British surgical photographer Percy Hennell (1911-1987) worked alongside the ‘world famous … father of modern plastic surgery’[1] Harold Delf Gilles (1882-1960) to capture pioneering reconstruction facial surgery in 1941-42. The two toured America and Canada during this time helping to bolster ‘the status of Britain at war at a time when, initially, America was still teetering between neutrality and entering the conflict.’[2]
 The works shown here further dissect Hennell’s photographs by juxtaposing a number of his subjects into new painted images. This piecing together of images in paint hints at the now common use of plastic surgery in modern society. It marks the shift away from reconstruction and reassimilation towards vanity and the meddling in our ‘own physical attributes in a desire to sculpt a vision of perfect beauty.’[3]
 Manipulation through image connects painting to surgical operations, these works also draw on ideas of image, beauty, state propaganda and war. A direct reference to Eisenstein’s film “Battleship Potemkin” can be found in the glasses of one particular subject.
 
 [1] Christine Slobogin, “Full Article: ‘Something Useful in a National Sense’: Percy Hennell’s Surgical and Nationalist Colour Photography, 1940-1948,” Taylor and Francis online, November 8, 2022, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14714787.2022.2094458.
 [2]Slobogin, 2022.
 [3] Madder139 Gallery. “Philip Gurrey.” Madder139 press release, May 15, 2008. www.madder139.com.