Jeff Lichtman, Joshua Sanes, and Jean Livet, Brainbow, 2007.
After debuting at the Weisman Art Museum, The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal exhibition traveled to university art museums in the U.S. and Canada. See below for the full traveling schedule.
Santiago Ramón y Cajal, considered the father of modern neuroscience, was also an exceptional artist. He drew the brain in a way that provided a clarity exceeding that achieved by photographs. Combining scientific and artistic skills to produce drawings with extraordinary scientific and aesthetic qualities, his theory that the brain is composed of individual cells rather than a tangled single web is the basis of neuroscience today. This traveling exhibition of Cajal’s original drawings was organized by the Weisman Art Museum in collaboration with Drs. Eric Newman, Alfonso Araque, and Janet Dubinsky, neuroscientists at the University of Minnesota and leaders in the field of neuroscience. Dr. Araque was formerly at the Instituto Cajal in Madrid, where Cajal worked and where his drawings are housed.
The exhibit is organized in collaboration with Ricardo Martinez Murillo, neuroscientist and curator of the Cajal Legacy at the Cajal Institute (CSIC) in Spain. Eighty of Cajal’s drawings, many appearing for the first time in the United States, will be accompanied by a selection of contemporary visualizations of the brain, photographs, historic books, and scientific tools. After the debut at WAM, the exhibition will travel to university galleries and museums throughout the United States and Canada.
THE BOOK ABRAMS has published a book to accompany the exhibition.The book is available for purchase in the WAM Shop. The book contains full color reproductions of all eighty of the exhibition drawings, commentary on each of the drawings, and essays on Cajal’s life and scientific contributions, his artistic root and achievements, and contemporary neuroscience imaging techniques.
The Beautiful Brain Tour Schedule January 28 – May 21, 2017 | Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota Minneapolis MN September 5 – December 3, 2017 | Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery,
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada January 9 – March 31, 2018 | Grey Art Gallery, New York University New York City, New York, USA May 2, 2018 – December 31, 2018 | MIT Museum, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA January 27 – April 7, 2019 | Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
Support from Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Public Understanding of Science, Technology and Economics program allows WAM, in partnership with The Cajal Institute and the four partner university museums, to build bridges between science and the humanities by distributing books free of charge to university libraries and students and teachers in local high-schools.
Top image: Santiago Ramón y Cajal, glial cells of the mouse spinal cord, 1899, ink and pencil on paper. Courtesy of Instituto Cajal (CSIC).
Right now at the Weisman Art Museum there is a lot of buzz about brains. Following the opening of The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal last week, there is a lot of excitement about neuroscience, microscopes, and the relationship between art and science. However, as developed as our brain imaging technologies may be, we still have a lot of room for development in our conversations around mental health on campus. This year in the WAM Collective, we have been focusing…
Virtual Field Trips and Online Tours While in-person tours and classroom visits have been discontinued until further notice, we are excited to offer virtual field trips and online tour options in place of in-person guided experiences for K-12 classrooms and University of Minnesota classes. Contact wamtour@umn.edu to learn more. Artful Writing Classroom Resource Kit This packet contains twenty color print reproductions of artwork from WAM’s permanent collection, background information, teachers resource guide, and eighteen linked writing activities for all levels.…
Apply to be a Gallery Host | 5 Spots Available Stipend: $200 Academic Credit: 2 credits depending on qualifications Internship Dates: Three four-hour orientation sessions on January 14, 15, and 16, 2020; Flexible schedule between February – May 2020 depending on class schedule. Eligibility: Registered UMN undergraduate, graduate or professional student. Apply: Please submit cover letter and resume to WAM’s Director of Education, Jamee Yung, at jtyung@umn.edu by Tuesday, December 10, 2019. WAM Gallery Hosts lead 15-minute, drop-in conversations that teach…
THE BOOK
