1. Anatomy
  2. Lover’s Eye and Masonic Prank

Lover’s Eye and Masonic Prank Initiation Devices Illustrated Lectures with One-Night-Only Mini Exhibits! Dance of Death Linocut Class! Workshops in Taxidermy, Hair Art, Anthropomorphic Insects and Bat Skeleton Domes! "Rest in Pieces" Book Party! Special London-based series this June and July! Morbid Anatomy Presents this Week and Beyond…

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This Thursday, April 11, Morbid Anatomy hopes to see you at Brooklyn's Observatory at our "Lover's Eye" event, a night dedicated to enigmatic portrait miniatures featuring only the sitters eye that were often used to commemorate illicit love affairs in the 18th century. The lineup will consist of an illustrated lecture tracing their history and resurgence in contemporary art, as well as a one-night-only mini exhibit of actual antique examples from a private collection. See top image for a special sneak preview of the lecture!
We also are excited to announce our newly added "Masonic Slapstick" evening, which will take place on Tuesday April 30 and explore the work of the DeMoulin Brothers, leading makers of "initiation prank devices" for the masons and other lodges. It will begin with an illustrated lecture by John Goldsmith, Curator of the DeMoulin Museum, followed by a one-night-only exhibition of initiation devices curated by Mike Zohn, co-star of TV's "Oddities". The second image down shows one of the DeMoulin Brothers's works, a "Parade Goat."

We are also excited to announce a new, typically inspired class by Morbid Anatomy Art Academy's regular instructor Lado Pochkua. In this class, entitled "Dance of Death by Hans Holbein: A Linocut Workshop" (Mondays May 20, 27th and June 3, bottom image) students will learn the techniques of woodcuts and linocuts by creating a copy of one of Hans Holbein’s prints from his 1538 Dance of Death series, and will leave class with their own finished Dance of Death linocut and the skills to produce their own pieces in the future.

Other upcoming offerings include taxidermy, hair art, anthropomorphic insect shadow box AND bat skeleton dome workshops, Rest in Pieces book party, and a special London-based series this June and July.
Full details follow. Hope to see you at one or more of these terrific events!
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Love’s Unknowable Eye: The Curious History and Mysterious Allure of 18th century “Lovers Eyes” Illustrated lecture and Genuine "Lover's Eye" Show and Tell with Artist Lauren Levato
Date: Thursday, April 11th
Time: 8.00
Admission: $8
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
Tonight at Observatory, we invite you to join us for a highly illustrated talk on what were historically called "eye miniatures," now called “lover’s eyes.” These beautiful portrait miniatures, featuring only the eye of the sitter, enjoyed a brief stint of outrageous popularity in the 18th century after a scandal involving the Prince of Wales, an illicit love affair, and a dramatic suicide attempt over the rejected love of a forbidden woman. Often created as tokens of memory for unsanctioned love, these gorgeous paintings—intensely intimate yet mysteriously anonymous—were lushly rendered on such media as ivory or copper. More than just treasures or statements of wealth, they were symbols of devotion, marriage, death, infidelity, memory, and promise. Nearly all of these enigmatic eyes are from lovers unknown, fictions that lure us with a fixed gaze, unyielding in its mystery and desire. Although the feverish mania for these objects ended nearly as quickly as it began, they continue to inspire, serving as muse to contemporary artists, photographers, painters and tattooists who explore the concept in thoroughly contemporary manners.
Tonight, Chicago based artist Lauren Levato--who curates a private collection containing thousands of objects of erotic affection, including several lover’s eyes set in brooches, rings, pill boxes, and bracelets--will trace the history and phenomenon of Lover’s Eyes, of which only an estimated 1,000 are known to still exist.
Lauren will also bring some authentic 18th century Lover’s Eyes for your delectation.
Lauren Levato is a visual artist and writer.  She is working on her exhibition for the International Museum of Surgical Science, opening in December, and has begun her own collection of lover’s eyes in tattoo form, as a type of signature of some of today’s best working tattooers.
Image: Unknown "Lover's Eye" on braided hair bracelet, Georgian period; Private collection
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Raccoon Head Taxidermy Class with Rogue Taxidermist Katie Innamorato
Date: Sunday, April 14
Time: 12 – 6 PM
Admission: $350
***Class Limited to 5; Must RSVP to katie.innamorato [at] gmail.com
This class is part of The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy
This course will introduce students to basic and fundamental taxidermy techniques and procedures. Students will be working with donated raccoon skins and will be going through the steps to do a head mount. The class is only available to 5 students, allowing for more one on one interaction and assistance. Students will be working with tanned and lightly prepped skin; there will be no skinning of the animals in class. This is a great opportunity to learn the basic steps to small and large mammal taxidermy. All materials will be supplied by the instructor, and you will leave class with your own raccoon head mount.
Rogue taxidermist Katie Innamorato has a BFA in sculpture from SUNY New Paltz, has been featured on the hit TV show "Oddities," and has had her work featured at La Luz de Jesus gallery in Los Angeles, California. She is self and professionally taught, and has won multiple first place ribb
ons and awards at the Garden State Taxidermy Association Competition. Her work is focussed on displaying the cyclical connection between life and death and growth and decomposition. Katie is a member of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists, and with all M.A.R.T. members she adheres to strict ethical guidelines when acquiring specimens and uses roadkill, scrap, and donated skins to create mounts.
Her website and blogs-
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Bat in Glass Dome Workshop
Part of DIY Wunderkammer Series: With Wilder Duncan (formerly of Evolution Shop, Soho) and Laetitia Barbier, head librarian at The Morbid Anatomy Library
With Wilder Duncan (formerly of Evolution Store, Soho) and Laetitia Barbier, head librarian at The Morbid Anatomy Library
Date: Sunday, April 21
Time: 1 – 6 PM
Admission: $200
*** MUST RSVP to Laetitia [at] atlasobscura.com 
In this class, students will learn how to create an osteological preparation of a bat in the fashion of 19th century zoological displays. A bat skeleton, a glass dome, branches, glue, tools, and all necessary materials will be provided for each student, but one should feel welcome to bring small feathers, stones, dried flowers, dead insects, natural elements, or any other materials s/he might wish to include in his/her composition. Students will leave the class with a visually striking, fully articulated, “lifelike” bat skeleton posed in a 10” tall glass dome. This piece can, in conjunction with the other creations in the DIY Wunderkammer workshop series, act as the beginning of a genuine collection of curiosities!
This class is part of the DIY Wunderkammer workshop series, curated by Laetitia Barbier and Wilder Duncan for Morbid Anatomy as a creative and pluridisciplinary exploration of the Curiosity Cabinet. The classes will focus on teaching ancient methods of specimen preparation that link science with art: students will create compositions involving natural elements and, according to their taste, will compose a traditional Victorian environment or a modern display. More on the series can be found here.
Wilder Duncan is an artist whose work puts a modern-day spin on the genre of Vanitas still life. Although formally trained as a realist painter at Wesleyan University, he has had a lifelong passion for, and interest in, natural history. Self-taught rogue taxidermist and professional specimen preparator, Wilder worked for several years at The Evolution Store creating, repairing, and restoring objects of natural historical interest such as taxidermy, fossils, seashells, minerals, insects, tribal sculptures, and articulated skeletons both animal and human. Wilder continues to do work for private collectors, giving a new life to old mounts, and new smiles to toothless skulls.
Laetitia Barbier is the head librarian at The Morbid Anatomy Library. She is working on a master's thesis for the Paris Sorbonne on painter Joe Coleman. She writes for Atlas Obscura and Morbid Anatomy.
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A Fate Worse Than Death: The Perils of Being a Famous Corpse with Bess Lovejoy, Author of Rest in Pieces
With Bess Lovejoy, author of Rest in Pieces
Date: Friday, April 26th
Time: 8pm
Admission: $10
Most of us know what our afterlives are going to be like: eternity in the ground, or resting in an urn on some relative’s mantelpiece. If we’re lucky, our children might occasionally bring us flowers or a potted plant, and that’s about as interesting as things are going to get.
Not so the famous deceased. For millennia, they’ve been bought and sold, worshipped and reviled, studied, collected, stolen, and dissected. They’ve been the star attractions at museums and churches, and used to found cemeteries, cities, even empires. Pieces of them have languished in libraries and universities, in coolers inside closets, and in suitcases underneath beds. For them, eternity has been anything but easy.
The more notable or notorious the body, the more likely it is that someone’s tried to disturb it. Consider the near-snatching of Abraham Lincoln, or the attempt on Elvis’s tomb. Then there’s Descartes, who is missing his head, and Galileo, who is spending eternity without his middle finger. Napoleon’s missing something a bit lower, as is the Russian mystic Rasputin, at least if the rumors are true. Meanwhile, Jesse James has had three graves, and may not have been in any of them, while it took a court case and an exhumation to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald was in his.
In this illustrated lecture, Bess Lovejoy will draw on her new book, Rest in Pieces, to discuss the many threats faced by famous corpses--from furta sacra ("holy theft" of saintly relics), to skull-stealing phrenologists, "Resurrection Men" digging up cadavers for medical schools, modern organ harvesters, the depredations of crazed fans, and much more.
Rest in Pieces will also be available for sale, and wine will be served in celebration of its release.

Bess Lovejoy is a writer, researcher, and editor based in
Seattle. She writes about dead people, forgotten history, and sometimes art, literature, and science. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Believer, The Boston Globe, The Stranger, and other publications. She worked on the Schott’s Almanac series for five years. Visit her at BessLovejoy.com.

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Masonic Slapstick - The DeMoulin Brothers and their Odd Initiate Prank Devices
An Illustrated lecture by John Goldsmith, Curator of the DeMoulin Museum accompanied by a one-night-only exhibition of initiation devices curated by Mike Zohn, co-star of TV's "Oddities"
Date: Tuesday, April 30th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $8
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

Between 1890 and 1930, hundreds of thousands of men belonged to the Masons, the Elks, the Kiwanis, or another of the over one hundred lodges which provided American men with a social outlet, a sense of importance, and sometimes even health and life insurance. One way these many lodges competed for members was with the use of inventive, theatrical and unlikely gadgets used in lodge initiations.

In 1892, Ed DeMoulin, a small town photographer who had more than a passing interest in the gadgets of the day, founded the DeMoulin company which went on to become one of the leading manufacturers of these lodge initiation devices. The DeMoulin brothers (Ed, U.S. and Erastus) held patents on many of the best known of these including "The Lifting & Spraying Machine," "The Lung Tester," and "The Low Down Buck Goat." The DeMoulin’s motto was “Fun in the Lodge Room” and there’s little doubt that these water shootin’, electric shockin’, blank firin’, collapsin’ devices could do the trick.

Who were the DeMoulin brothers? And how did they become the zany geniuses behind these lodge initiation pranks? Tonight John Goldsmith, curator of the DeMoulin Museum, will share their story and demonstrate some of the devices. He’ll also provide a virtual tour of the DeMoulin Museum. There will also be a one-night-only mini exhibit of initiation devices curated by Mike Zohn, co-star of TV's "Oddities."

John Goldsmith is curator of the was the DeMoulin Museum. He was also a consultant on Catalog 439: Burlesque Paraphernalia published by Fantagraphics in 2010 and The Extraordinary Catalog of Peculiar Inventions published by Perigee in 2011. The DeMoulin Museum has been featured on KSDK’s “Show Me St. Louis” and WSEC’s “Illinois Stories”.
Mike Zohn--co-star of TV's "Oddities" and co-owner of Obscura Antiques--is a long term DeMoulin enthusiast and collector.

Image: "The DADDY Uv-Um ALL," parade goat by The DeMoulin Brothers.


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Anthropomorphic Insect Shadowbox Workshop with Former AMNH Senior Insect Preparator Daisy TaintonWith Daisy Tainton, Senior Insect Preparator at the American Museum of Natural History
Date: Saturday, May 11th
Time: 1 – 4 PM
Admission: $75
***Tickets MUST be pre-ordered by clicking here
You can also pre-pay in person at the Observatory during open hours.
This class is part of The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy

Today, join former AMNH Senior Insect Preparator Daisy Tainton for Observatory’s popular Anthropomorphic Insect Shadowbox Workshop. In this class, students will work with Rhinoceros beetles: nature’s tiny giants. Each student will learn to make–and leave with their own!–shadowbox dioramas featuring carefully positioned beetles doing nearly anything you can imagine. Beetles and shadowboxes are provided, and an assortment of miniature furniture, foods, and other props will be available to decorate your habitat. Students need bring nothing, though are encouraged to bring along dollhouse props if they have a particular vision for their final piece; 1:12 scale work best.

BEETLES WILL BE PROVIDED. Each student receives one beetle approximately 2-3 inches tall when posed vertically.

Daisy Tainton was formerly Senior Insect Preparator at the American Museum of Natural History, and has been working with insects professionally for several years. Eventually her fascination with insects and  love of Japanese miniature food items naturally came together, resulting in cute and ridiculous museum-inspired yet utterly unrealistic dioramas. Beetles at the dentist? Beetles eating pie and knitting sweaters? Even beetles on the toilet? Why not?
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Dance of Death by Hans Holbein: A Linocut Workshop with Classically Trained Artist Lado Pochkua 
Dates: Tuesdays May 20, May 27 and June 4

Time: 7 - 10 PM
Admission: $60
***MUST RSVP to morbidanatomylibrary [at] gmail.com
This class is part of The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy

The "dance of death" or "danse macabre" was a "medieval allegorical concept of the all-conquering and equalizing power of death, expressed in the drama, poetry, music, and visual arts of western Europe, mainly in the
late Middle Ages. It is a literary or pictorial representation of a procession or dance of both living and dead figures, the living arranged in order of their rank, from pope and emperor to child, clerk, and hermit, and the dead leading them to the grave." (Encyclopedia Britannica). One of the best known expressions of this genre are a series of forty-two wood cuts by Hans Holbien published in 1538 under the title "Dance of Death."

In this class, students will learn the techniques of woodcuts and linocuts by creating a copy of one of Hans Holbein’s prints from the Dance of Death series. The class will follow the entire process from beginning to end: drafting a copy of the image, either a fragment or whole; transfer of the image to a linoleum block; cutting the image; printing the image on paper. Students will leave class with their own finished Dance of Death linocut and the skills to produce their own pieces in the future.

  • Lesson 1: creating a copy of either a fragment or full image from the series on paper. The copy can either be freehand and stylized, or students can use a grid to copy more exactly.
  • Lesson 2: transfer the drawing to linoleum.
  • Lesson 3: correction of image, and beginning to cut the image.
  • Lesson 4: finalizing the cut image.
  • Lesson 5: Printing the image. Students will be able to use several colors and backgrounds to create the final image.

REQUIRED MATERIALS

  • A block of linoleum: Blick Battleship Gray Linoleum, mounted or unmounted (details here)

OR

  • Speedball Speedy-carve blocks, pink only (details here) Size: 9x12 or 8x10.

AND

  • Linocutter set: Blick Lino Cutter Set (details here)Water soluble printing inks
  • Printing paper
  • Tracing paper
  • Pencils
  • Black markers (fine point)

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR
Lado Pochkhua was born in Sukhumi, Georgia in 1970. He received his MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Tbilisi State Art Academy in Georgia in 2001. He currently divides his time between New York and Tbilisi, Georgia.
Selected Exhibitions:

  • 2011   “Works from the Creamer Street Studio,” at the Literature Museum, Tbilisi Georgia  (solo show)
  • 2010    “Paradise ” at Proteus Gowanus, New York
  • 2009    “Prague Biennale 4,” Georgian pavilion
  • 2009    “The Art of returning Home,” Arsi Gallery, Tbilisi Georgia (solo show)
  • 2008    Gardens, Ships, and Lessons, K. Petrys Ház Gallery, Budapest, Hungary (solo show) Exhibition of Georgian Artists, Festival OFF EUROPA ditorei Gallerie NBL, Leipzig, Germany
  • 2004    Artists of Georgia, Georgian Embassy, London, UK
  • 2003    Curriculum Vitae: a retrospective of 20th century Georgian art, Caravasla Tbilisi History Museum, Tbilisi, Georgia, Waiting for the Barbarians, Gallery Club 22, Tbilisi, Georgia (solo show)
  • 2001     21 Georgian Artists, UNESCO, Paris, France
  • 1998    Magical Geometry, TMS Gallery, Tbilisi, Georgia (solo show)

Image: Image: “Melior est mors quam vita” to the aged woman who crawls gravewards with her bone rosary while Death makes music in the van." From Hans Holbein's "Dance of Death."
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Date: Sunday, June 2
Time: 12-4 PM
Admission: $75
***Must pre-order tickets here: http://victorianmourningjewelry.bpt.me
This class is part of The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy
Hair jewelry was an enormously popular form of commemorative art that began in the late 17th century and reached its zenith during the Victorian Era. Hair, either of someone living or deceased, was encased in metal lockets or woven to enshrine the human relic of a loved one. This class will explore a modern take on the genre.
The technique of "palette working" or arranging hair in artful swoops and curls will be explored and a variety of ribbons, beads, wire and imagery of mourning iconography will be supplied for potential inclusion. A living or deceased person or pet may be commemorated in this manner.
Students are requested to bring with them to class their own hair, fur, or feathers; all other necessary materials will be supplied. Hair can be self-cut, sourced from barber shops or hair salons (who are usually happy to provide you with swept up hair), from beauty supply shops (hair is sold as extensions), or from wig suppliers. Students will leave class with their own piece of hair jewelry and the knowledge to create future projects.

Karen Bachmann is a fine jeweler with over 25 years experience, including several years on staff as a master jeweler at Tiffany and Co. She is a Professor in the Jewelry Design Dept at Fashion Institute of Technology as well as the School of Art and Design at Pratt Institute. She has recently completed her MA in Art History at SUNY Purchase with a thesis entitled Hairy Secrets:... In her downtime she enjoys collecting biological specimens, amateur taxidermy and punk rock. 
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Morbid Anatomy Presents at London's Last Tuesday Society this June and July
A series of London-based events, workshops, special tours, screenings and spectacles surveying the interstices of art and medicine, death and culture curated by Observatory's Morbid Anatomy
Date: June 2 - July 25
Time: Variable, but most lectures begin at 7 PM
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here) unless otherwise specified

The series will feature Morbid Anatomy's signature mix of museum professionals, professors, librarians, artists, rogue scholars, and autodidacts--many flown in direct from Morbid Anatomy's base in Brooklyn, New York--to elucidate on a wide array of topics including (but not limited to!) The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead; "human zoos;" "speaking reliquaries;" why music drives women mad; eccentric folk medicine collections; Santa M
uerte (or "Saint Death); dissection and masturbation; dissection and magic; Victorian memorial hair jewelry; the "hot nurse" in popular fiction; The Danse Macabre; "a cinematic survey of The Vampires of London;" and anatomical waxworks and death.

There will be also two special backstage tours: one of the legendary Blythe House, home of the vast and incredible collection of Henry Wellcome and the other of the Natural History Museum's zoological collection, featuring the famously gorgeous Blaschka invertebrate glass model collection; a special magic lantern show featuring "the weirdest, most inappropriate and completely baffling examples of lantern imagery" conjured by collector and scholar Professor Heard, author of Phantasmagoria- The Secret Life of the Magic Lantern; a screening of rare short films from the BFI National Archive documenting folk music, dance, customs and sport; and workshops in the creation of Victorian hair work, lifelike wax wounds, and bat skeletons in glass domes.

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Wax Wound Workshop with medical artist Eleanor Crook
Sunday, June 2, 2013 at 1:00 - 5:00 PM
More here

Let acclaimed sculptor Eleanor Crook guide you in creating your very own wax wound. Crook has lent her experience to professionals ranging from forensic law enforcement officers to plastic surgeons, so is well placed to help you make a horrendously lifelike scar, boil or blister.
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Art, Wax, Death and Anatomy : Illustrated lecture with art historian Roberta Ballestriero
Monday, June 3, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

Wax modelling, or ceroplastics, is of ancient origin but was revived in 14th century Italy with the cult of Catholic votive objects, or ex votos.  Art Historian Roberta Ballestriero will discuss the art and history of wax modeling sacred and profane; she will also showcase many of its greatest masterworks.
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Music Driving Women Mad: The History of Medical Fears of its Effects on Female Bodies and Minds: Illustrated lecture with Dr. James Kennaway
Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

Over the past few centuries, countless physicians and writers have asserted that music could cause very serious medical problems for the 'weaker sex'. Not only could it bring on symptoms of nervousness and hysteria, it could also cause infertility, nymphomania and even something called 'melosexualism'. This talk will give an outline of this strange debate, using the raciest stories to be found in gynaecological textb
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Solitary vice? Sex and Dissection in Georgian London With Dr Simon Chaplin
Wednesday, June 5, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

In this lavishly illustrated lecture, Simon Chaplin explores the sexual undertones of the anatomy schools of Georgian London, in which students dissected grave-robbed bodies in the back-rooms of their teachers' houses, while their masters explored new strategies for presenting their work to polite audiences through museums and lectures.
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Heartthrobs of the Human Zoo: Ethnographic Exhibitions and Captive Celebrities of Turn of the Century America: An Illustrated Lecture with Betsy Bradley
Thursday, June 6, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

From ransomed Congolese pygmies to winsome Eskimo babies, the American world's fairs and patriotic expositions  present history with a number of troubling ethnographic celebrities, and their stories offer a rare glimpse inside the psychology and culture of imperial America at the turn of a new century.
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The Astounding Collection of Henry Wellcome: Blythe House Backstage Tour with Selina Hurley, Assistant Curator of Medicine, The Science Museum
Friday, June 7, 2013 at 3:00pm
More here

Henry Wellcome (1853 - 1936)----early pharmaceutical magnate and man behind the Wellcome Trust, Collection, and Library--was the William Randolph Hearst of the medical collecting world. That collection, possibly the finest medical collection in the world, now resides in Blythe House, kept in trust by The Science Museum on permanent loan from the Wellcome Trust. Today, a lucky fifteen people will get a rare chance to see this collection, featuring many artifacts of which have never before been on public view, in this backstage tour led Selina Hurley, Assistant Curator of Medicine at The Science Museum.
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Neapolitan Cult of the Dead with Chiara Ambrosio
Monday, June 10, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

In tonight's illustrated lecture, Italian artist and filmmaker Chiara Ambrosio will elucidate this curious and fascinating "Neapolitan Cult of the Dead" and situate it within a the rich death culture and storied history of Naples.
  
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A Vile Vaudeville of Gothic Attractions: Illustrated lecture by Mervyn Heard, author of Phantasmagoria- The Secret Life of the Magic Lantern
Tuesday, June 11, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

An illustrated talk in which writer and showman 'Professor' Mervyn Heard waxes scattergun- sentimental over some of the more bizarre, live theatrical experiences of the 18th, 19th and early 20th century - from the various ghastly manifestations of the phantasmagoria to performing hangmen, self-crucifiers and starving brides.

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Professor Heard's Most Extraordinary Magic Lantern Show with Mervyn Heard
Wednesday, June 12, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

Professor Heard is well known to patrons of the Last Tuesday Lecture programme for his sell-out magic lantern entertainments. In this latest assault on the eye he summons up some of the weirdest, most inappropriate and completely baffling examples of lantern imagery, lantern stories and optical effects by special request of Morbid Anatomy.

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"Speaking Reliquaries" and Christian Death Rituals: Part One of "Hairy Secrets" Series With Karen Bachmann
Thursday, June 13, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

3-part series on human relics and Victorian mourning jewelry--master jeweler and art historian Karen Bachmann will focus on what are termed "speaking" reliquaries: the often elaborate containers which house the preserved body parts--or relics--of saints and martyrs with shapes which reflect that of the body-part contained within.

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Hair Art Workshop Class: The Victorian Art of Hair Jewellery With Karen Bachmann
Friday, June 14, 2013 at 1:00pm
More here

Hair jewellery was an enormously popular form of commemorative art that began in the late 17th century and reached its zenith during the Victorian Era. Hair, either of someone living or deceased, was encased in metal lockers or woven to enshrine the human relic of a loved one. This class will explore a modern take on the genre.

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The History of the Memento Mori and Death's Head Iconography: Part Two of
"Hairy Secrets" Series Illustrated lecture with Art Historian and Master Jeweler Karen Bachmann
Friday, June 14, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

In tonight's lecture--the second in a 3-part series on human relics and Victorian mourning jewelry--master jeweler and art historian Karen Bachmann will explore the development of the memento mori,objects whose very raison d'être is to remind the beholder that they, too, will die.

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Hair Art Workshop Class: The Victorian Art of Hair Jewellery With Karen Bachmann
Saturday, June 15, 2013 at 1:00pm (More here)
Sunday, June 16, 2013 at 1:00pm (More here)

Hair jewellery was an enormously popular form of commemorative art that began in the late 17th century and reached its zenith during the Victorian Era. Hair, either of someone living or deceased, was encased in metal lockers or woven to enshrine the human relic of a loved one. This class will explore a modern take on the genre.

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The Victorian Love Affair with Death and the Art of Mourning Hair Jewelry: Illustrated lecture with Art Historian and Master Jeweler Karen Bachmann
Monday, June 17, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

The Victorians had a love affair with death which they expressed in a variety of ways, both intensely sentimental and macabre. Tonight's lecture-the last in a 3-part series on human relics and Victorian mourning jewelry-will take as its focus the apex of the phenomenon of hair jewelry fashion in the Victorian Era as an expression of this passion.

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Dissection and Magic with Constanza Isaza Martinez
Tuesday, June 18, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

This lecture examines images of human corpses in Early Modern European art in relation to two specific themes: the practice of 'witchcraft' or 'magic'; and the emergent medical profession, particularly anatomical dissection.
  
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Future Death. Future Dead Bodies. Future Cemeteries Illustrated lecture by Dr. John Troyer, Deputy Director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath
Thursday, June 20, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

Dr. John Troyer, from the Centre for Death & Society, University of Bath, will discuss three kinds of postmortem futures: Future Death, Future Dead Bodies, and Future Cemeteries. Central to these Futures is the human corpse and its use in new forms of body disposal technology, digital technology platforms, and definitions of death.

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‘She Healed Their Bodies With Her White Hot Passions’: The Role of the Nurse in Romantic Fiction with Natasha McEnroe Illustrated lecture Natasha McEnroe, Director of the Florence Nightingale Museum
Sunday, June 23, 2013 at 7:00pm
https://www.facebook.com/events/478987722156193/

Victorian portrayals of the nurse show either a drunken and dishonest old woman or an angelic and devoted being, which changes to a 20th-century caricature just as pervasive - that of the 'sexy nurse'. In this talk, Natasha McEnroe will explore the links between the enforced intimacy of the sickroom and the handling of bodies for more recreational reasons.

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Face lift or face reconstruction? Redesigning the Museum Vrolik, Amsterdam's anatomical museum An illustrated lecture with Dr. Laurens de Rooy, curator of the Museum Vrolik in Amsterdam
Monday, June 24, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

Counting more than five thousand preparations and specimens, the Museum Vrolikianum, the private collection of father Gerard and his son Willem Vrolik was an amazing object of interest one hundred and fifty years ago. In the 1840s and 50s this museum, established in Gerard's stately mansion on the river Amstel, grew into a famous collection that attracted admiring scientists from both the Netherlands and abroad. In this talk, Museum Vrolik curator Dr Laurens de Rooy will take you on a guided tour of the new museum, and give an overview of all the other aspects of the 'new' Museum Vrolik.

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The Walking Dead in 1803: An Illustrated Lecture with Phil Loring, Curator of Psychology at the Science Museum in London
Tuesday, June 25, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

A visiting Italian startled Londoners at the turn of the 19th century by making decapitated animals and executed men open their eyes and move around, as if on the verge of being restored to life. This was not magic but the power of electricity from the newly invented Galvanic trough, or battery. This talk will discuss a variety of historical instruments from the Science Museum's collections that figured in these re-animation experiments, including the apparatus used by Galvani himself in his laboratory in Bologna.
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The Influencing Machine: James Tilly Matthews and the Air Loom with Mike Jay
Wednesday, June 26, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

Confined in Bedlam in 1797 as an incurable lunatic, James Tilly Matthews' case is one of the most bizarre in the annals of psychiatry. He was the first person to insist that his mind was being controlled by a machine: the Air Loom, a terrifying secret weapon whose mesmeric rays and mysterious gases were brainwashing politicians and plunging Europe into revolution, terror and war. But Matthews' case was even stranger than his doctors realised: many of the incredible conspiracies in which he claimed to be involved were entirely real.

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A Waxen France: Madame Tussaud’s Representations of the French: Illustrated Lecture by Pamela Pilbeam Emeritus Professor of French History, Royal Holloway, University of London and author of Madame Tussaud and the History of Waxworks
Thursday, June 27, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

Madame Tussaud's presentation of French politics and history did much to inform and influence the popular perception of France among the British. This lecture will explore that view and how it changed during the nineteenth century.

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Backstage Tour of the Zoological Collection of the Natural History Museum with Miranda Lowe
Friday, June 28, 2013 at 3:00pm
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Today, ten lucky people will get to join Miranda Lowe, Collections Manager of the Aquatic Invertebrates Division, for a special backstage tour of The Natural History Museum of London. The tour will showcase the zoological spirit collections in the Darwin Centre, some of Darwin's barnacles and the famed collection of glass marine invertebrate models crafted by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka in the 19th and early 20th century.
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Bat in Glass Dome Workshop: Part of DIY Wunderkammer Series With Wilder Duncan (formerly of Evolution Store, Soho) and Laetitia Barbier, head librarian at The Morbid Anatomy Library
Saturday, June 29, 2013 at 1:00pm (more here)
Sunday, June 30, 2013 at 1:00pm (more here)

In this class, students will learn how to create an osteological preparation of a bat in the fashion of 19th century zoological displays. A bat skeleton, a glass dome, branches, glue, tools, and all necessary materials will be provided for each student.  The classes will focus on teaching ancient methods of specimen preparation that link science with art: students will create compositions involving natural elements and, according to their taste, will compose a traditional Victorian environment or a modern display.
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The Coming of Age of the Danse Macabre on the Verge of the Industrial Age with Alexander L. Bieri Illustrated lecture with Alexander L. Bieri
Tuesday, July 9, 2013 at 7:00pm
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The lecture not only discusses Schellenberg's danse macabre in detail, but also gives an insight into the current fascination with vanitas and its depictions, especially focusing on the artistic exploitation of the theme and takes into consideration the history of anatomical dissection and preparation.
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"Viva la Muerte: The Mushrooming Cult of Saint Death" Illustrated lecture and book signing with Andrew Chesnut
Wednesday, July 10, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

The worship of Santa Muerte, a psuedo Catholic saint which takes the form of a personified and clothed lady death, is on the rise and increasingly controversial in Mexico and the United States. Literally translating to "Holy Death" or "Saint Death," the worship of Santa Muerte-like Day of the Dead-is a popular form of religious expression rooted in a rich syncretism of the beliefs of the native Latin Americans and the colonizing Spanish Catholics.
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From Blue Beads to Hair Sandwiches: Edward Lovett and London's Folk Medicine: An Illustrated lecture with Ross MacFarlane, Research Engagement Officer in the Wellcome Library
Monday, July 15, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

During his life Edward Lovett (1852-1933) amassed one of the largest collections of objects pertaining to 'folk medicine' in the British Isles.  Lovett particularly focused his attention on objects derived from contemporary, working class Londoners, believing that the amulets, charms and mascots he collected - and which were still being used in 20th century London - were 'survivals' of antiquated, rural practices.
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The Vampires of London: A Cinematic Survey with William Fowler (BFI) and Mark Pilkington (Strange Attractor)
Thursday, July 18, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

This heavily illustrated presentation and film clip selection explores London's Highgate Cemetery as a locus of horror in the 1960s and 1970s cinema, from mondo and exploitation to classic Hammer horror.
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"Here's a Health to the Barley Mow: a Century of Folk Customs and Ancient Rural Games" Screenings of Short Films from the BFI Folk Film Archives with William Fowler
Wednesday, July 24, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

Tonight, the British Film Institute's William Fowler will present a number of rare and beautiful short films from the BFI National Archive and Regional Film Archives showing some of our rich traditions of folk music, dance, customs and sport. Highlights include the alcoholic folk musical Here's a Health to the Barley Mow (1955), Doc Rowe's speedy sword dancing film and the Padstow Mayday celebration Oss Oss Wee Oss (Alan Lomax/Peter Kennedy 1953).
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Of Satyrs, Horses and Camels: Natural History in the Imaginative Mode: illustrated lecture by Daniel Margócsy, Hunter College, New York
Thursday, July 25, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

From its beginnings, science was (and still is) an imaginative and speculative enterprise, just like the arts. This talk traces the exchange of visual information between the major artists of the Renaissance and the leading natural historians of the scientific revolution. It shows how painters' and printmakers' fictitious images of unicorns, camels and monkfish came to populate the botanical and zoological encyclopedias of early modern Europe.

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You can find out more on all events here.

Source:
http://morbidanatomy.blogspot.com/2013/04/lovers-eye-and-masonic-prank-initiation.html

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