One thinks of Jusepe de Ribera's famous portrait of Magdalena Ventura, the bearded woman, on permanent display in the Prado - an image that retains a greater force than all the photographs of such conditions subsequently taken by medical science.

John McDonald

 

DAMAGED
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thalidomide victims in medical documents 
Case 5, 150 x 100 oil on linen, 2012 Art Gallery of NSW 
2012 here
press coverage and essay here