Dorothy Brower, Medical Illustrator, Collection

Dorothy Brower was born in East Orange, New Jersey, on September 10, 1900. As a member of a socially prominent family, she was able to attend private schools and to associate with other prominent people such as President Grover Cleveland’s family, politicians, diplomats, explorers, and others.

Dorothy Brower had an interest in art from an early age. She chose not to attend a finishing school, but to pursue an art career by attending the Fawcett Academy of Art in Newark, New Jersey. She also attended Columbia University and New York University, taking courses in art and in practice and theory in teaching art.

Miss Brower applied to the Johns Hopkins University’s Department of Art as Applied to Medicine to be taught by the famous German medical illustrator Max Brödel (1870-1941). “Out of a thousand applicants, [Max Brödel] would interview a hundred. And out of a hundred, only ten would be accepted. You had to be a college graduate and have art training. Out of the ten, he chose three. I was one of the three” (Clem Hamilton, “Artist Draws on Colorful Memories of her Career: Interesting People, Events Dot 86 Years,” Dayton Daily News, 23 November 1986, pp. 1 and 11).

Max Brödel, known as the father of medical illustration, was a demanding instructor. He required his students to master human anatomy. Over a three year period, from 1927 to 1930, Miss Brower dissected three cadavers: an adult male, an adult female, and an infant. It was necessary for the medical artist to have a thorough knowledge of the human body. During surgery, the artist had to be able to accurately sketch what was happening even when body parts were completely covered by blood. Accuracy was important because it could mean life or death for the patient. Sketches were superior to photographs in that where photographs would show only a mass of blood, the sketch could suggest what was happening under the surgeon’s knife.

After graduating from Johns Hopkins University in 1930, Dorothy Brower spent the next ten years, from 1931 to 1941, working as a free-lance medical illustrator. In 1942, she was hired to be the Staff Medical Artist for the Jackson Clinic in Madison, Wisconsin. “I was there ten years. I had charge of medical illustration and also was in charge of all the medical exhibits at the American Medical Association conventions. We won all kinds of awards. We were competing with the Mayo Clinic, the Lahey Clinic, and the Cleveland Clinic” (Eileen Hawlk, “Former Wright-Pat Artists Also part of Medical World,” Dayton Daily News, 22 May 1981). While at the Jackson Clinic, Miss Brower was encouraged to learn medical sculpture. Medical sculpture provided medical students and doctors with a three-dimensional representation of an operative procedure. She received instruction in the methods and techniques of Surgical Wax Sculpture from the Mayo Clinic. At the time, she was one of only about five others in the United States who could do medical sculpture. Miss Brower also received instruction in Medical Photography at the University of Wisconsin.

In January 1952, the Jackson Clinic reorganized. Due to temporary financial problems, they had to eliminate several departments, including the Medical Art department.

In September 1952, Dorothy Brower began employment as the Scientific Medical Illustrator at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana. After three years, she was transferred to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base where she was made the Scientific Medical Illustrator for the Aerospace Medical Laboratory. Considered top secret at the time, her work consisted of comparing the animal sent into space with human beings. She worked to help prepare the astronauts for manned space flight. In 1964, Miss Brower left Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to become a free-lance illustrator before retiring around 1972 to do her own painting.

Throughout her medical illustration career, Dorothy Brower’s artwork was used to teach; to illustrate journal, magazine, or technical bulletin articles; and to illustrate books. Her work also appeared in museum exhibits at the Jackson Clinic, and in conventions where it won many awards.

Dorothy Brower was admitted as a member of the Association of Medical Illustrators in 1964. She was also a member of the Association of Painters and Sculptors in Dayton, Ohio, and of Arts Center Dayton as a free-lance medical illustrator.

Dorothy Brower passed away on January 7, 1992, at the age of ninety-one. She had been living at Heartland of Beavercreek, a nursing facility near Dayton, Ohio.

(This biographical sketch was written by Laura C. Williams. For additional information, please also see William Henry Young, “Dorothy Brower: Medical Illustrator/Sculptor,” Dayton Medicine January 1987: 30-31.)