Synopsis
Morphine addictions increased significantly following the invention of the hypodermic syringe in 1851. Whilst generally attributed to Alexander Wood (Edinburgh), French newspapers labelled Charles Pravaz of Lyon as the ‘true inventor of the syringe’. Many French artists created works showing morphine use and syringes. By investigating these images, this talk explores how artists reinforced an unavoidable association between women, addiction and the medical sector.
This is a recording of a previous event, which will be sent to you after you complete your booking.
Speaker
Dr Hannah Halliwell is is a lecturer in the art history department at the University of Edinburgh. She specialises in nineteenth-century French art, with a focus on images of addiction, alcohol and drug use, the medical sector, and gender. Her monograph, Art, Medicine, and Femininity: Visualising the Morphine Addict in Paris, 1870-1914 was published in 2024 with McGill-Queen’s University Press. Her next book, Historical Dictionary of Impressionism (co-authored with Professor Frances Fowle), will be out in August 2026 with Bloomsbury. Having recently finished researching artworks of absinthe drinking, Hannah is now focusing on images of anaesthesia and surgery to gain insight into the nineteenth-century understanding of pain and how it was visualised.