Wellcome Collection announces first major exhibition: The Heart (Live Heart Surgery, Leonardo da Vinci Drawings, Andy Warhol Prints, Sacred Heart Imagery Never Before Seen In Europe, Egyptian Book of the Dead, Foundling Cards, Life-Sized Venal Anatomy Tables)

The Heart, an exhibition exploring the medical and cultural significance of the body’s most precious organ, featuring exhibits from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Leonardo da Vinci and Andy Warhol, through to live heart surgery, will be the first major exhibition in the new GBP 30 million Wellcome Collection, in June.

Wellcome Collection, a major new public venue from the Wellcome Trust, will explore the relationships between medicine, life and art through permanent and temporary exhibitions and events, to provide radical insights into the human condition. Entry will be free. Wellcome Collection is the first venue of its kind in the country and forms a significant cultural landmark for London and the UK. The nine-storey building will house at least 1500 exhibits in temporary and permanent exhibitions across three galleries totalling 1350 m2: Medicine Man, Medicine Now and a temporary exhibition space, which will host The Heart. The world-famous Wellcome Library, also housed in Wellcome Collection, opens on 16 April – ahead of the three galleries.

The Heart brings together contemporary and historic artefacts from across the world to form an exhibition that traces the history of our medical understanding of the heart and examines its extraordinary symbolic and cultural significance. The exhibition follows the development of man’s understanding of the heart: the theories of the Greek surgeon Galen; dissection drawings of the heart by Leonardo da Vinci; mid-17th-century anatomical tables from Padua onto which entire human venous and arterial systems have been varnished; the work of William Harvey, the physician who in 1620 published his discoveries of how the heart pumps blood around the body; through to a modern perfusion machine that can take over the function of the heart and lungs during heart surgery; and recent films that deal with the ethical and personal dilemmas faced in the age of heart transplantation. Leading heart surgeon Francis Wells will perform an open-heart operation at Papworth Hospital, video-linked to a public audience in Wellcome Collection’s auditorium, as part of the launch events programme.

The powerful cultural symbolism of the heart is illustrated through a range of ancient and contemporary artefacts, such as: the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, which shows the heart being weighed against the ‘feather of truth’ in order to determine the deceased’s suitability for the afterlife; Aztec sacrificial knives and an offertory vessel used for offering up the heart of a sacrificial victim to replenish the power of the sun; and a rich selection of Christian Sacred Heart imagery, including paintings from Mexico never before seen in Europe and 19th-century hearts playing cards cut in half, so that one half could accompany an orphan given up to a Foundling Hospital while the child’s mother retained the other half so that she might be able to reclaim her child in later life.

The Heart also looks at the stories of individuals such as Thomas Hardy and David Livingstone, whose hearts were removed from their bodies after death in order to be buried in a place of particular emotional significance. Visitors will be able to compare the scale and capacity of the human heart with the hearts of other animals. A 1.75-metre-high sperm whale’s heart is displayed for comparison with those of other animals – from an elephant to a hummingbird. The whale’s heart beats as slowly as 10 times a minute while the hummingbird’s can achieve an extraordinary 1200 beats a minute when hovering.

The Heart has been curated by James Peto and Emily Jo Sargent.

The Heart book: To coincide with this pioneering exhibition, the Wellcome Trust and Yale University Press are publishing The Heart, a richly illustrated 250-page hardback book of nine essays exploring the medical and cultural importance of the heart. Writers include Jonathan Miller, Louisa Young, and Mark Bracewell. The Heart will be available nationwide from May 2007 and sold at Wellcome Collection when it opens.

Registration required:

No

Free:

Yes