Trendlet Alert: Anatomy Lesson

The Look: While botanical and zoological drawings and prints have long been celebrated as elegant and often attainable artworks, these days trendsetters are getting to the heart of the matter—literally. Designers are hanging medical charts in well-turned-out spaces and discerning shopkeepers are elevating anatomical models to objets d’arts. Jewelry designers too, are finding inspiration from internal organs and skeletal structures.

Seen In: Rather than simply framing her finds, Kansas-based artist Suzanna Scott of Sushipot Art Objects creates collages and freestanding pieces from drawings of nasal cavities, stomachs, and such, like her set of ephemera art blocks, “Anatomical Dissection” created using French anatomical illustrations, circa 1892.

Craig Crawford of Wanderlust Ceramics in North Kingstown, RI finds inspiration for her pottery from the experiences she had growing up. She tells us: “When I was 8 years old I was over playing at my friend Natalie's house, whose father was a psychiatrist. One day we walked through the laundry room, and sitting on top of the washing machine in a steel basin was a human brain. I touched it as we walked past. It did not seem strange at the time.”

Brooklyn jewelry designer Lillian Crowe  has garnered quite a bit of local press on her rib cage necklaces, which some speculate were copied by Urban Outfitters. She says, “I decided to take the in vogue idea of found anatomical objects (bones and shells of small creatures, etc.) one step further and play with human anatomy as inspiration.”

Photographer Porter Hovey (sister of blogger Hollister Hovey ) clued us in to Spuytin Duyvil, one of her favorite local bars in Brooklyn, which is filled with old oddities, including anatomy posters. However, she traces her penchant for the posters back to college, when she was interning in the press office of Agnes b. She says, “Every day I walked by a junk shop on Houston. My last day working, the owner was outside, and we started to talk. I told him how much I loved his shop and in particular the poster depicting the anatomy of a grasshopper. He said that since I seemed so sweet and loved the poster so much he would give me a good deal on it. It my first major decorating purchase and one I still have today.”

Tyler Doran of Heir Antiques in Providence, RI, loves off-kilter stuff, including anatomical charts, of which he has a pair of front and back views, found from two different dealers, in Berlin and Belgium. He explains, “I'd only ever seen the rear view of life-sized charts, but with a little digging found the matching front view. I love them as a pair; I love their scale, the color, and the idealized pose of each figure. They're not just scientific teaching aids standing there ready to be studied. They have so much emotion and character in their form.”

Finally, there’s artist Sean Scherer and his Catskill antique shop Kabinett & Kammer, which we discovered from a profile in the New York Times  last fall. It’s like a natural history museum gone on sale, with everything from vintage school charts and taxidermy to antique anatomical models, animal skulls and skeletons.

Loved By: Designer Katrine Martensen-Larsen of KML Design in Germany hung an anatomy poster in a nursery, finding it more educational than off-putting. She explains, “The bed was from a hospital, so we thought an anatomy poster would be fun. It provides lots to talk about when you put your kids to bed. Kids are fascinated about the body.”

Molly Luetkemeyer of M. Design Interiors in L.A., who is always embracing the current trends, from zigzags to pachyderms, carrying them out in current but classic ways, hung an anatomical chart in the the media room of a client’s Spanish-style house. “The truth is,” she admits, “we just liked it!  The image was very cool, and the color and size worked well.”

Photo stylist JC Garcia-Lavin who works and lives in New York City is also a fan, as evidenced by his very cool bathroom featured in the January/February 2010 issue of Elle Décor. The green tiled room boasts over half a dozen anatomy prints, plus curiosities that include a phrenology head and teeth samples. He says, “I bought the anatomy prints in Paris 15 years ago, they are from the late 1800s. The rest of the collection are flea market finds.”

An anatomy of eBay Picks:

Roll over items for details

Vintage Optical Eye Medical Anatomical Optometry Model

Vintage Retro Anatomy Anatomical Medical Model Nystrom (buy it now price, $975)

(buy it now price, $250)

Vintage Heart Model Medical Teaching Item Dr.’s Estate

(winning bid, $9.99)

Decorative Print "Persia, Qajar Anatomical" Medical

(buy it now price, $41.99)

Vintage Medical Hand Model-Merck Advertisement

(winning bid, $71)

Antique Medical Print-Measles-Chicken Pox-Skin-1890

(buy it now price, $44.90)

Anatomical Medical Print of Male Human Brain

(buy it now price, $15)

Vintage Retro Anatomical Medical Model Nystrom

(buy it now price, $975)

Antique Medical Plastics Lab. Skeleton

(buy it now price, $2,450)

Antique German Dental Solila Mold Teeth Model

(buy it now price, $110)

1837 Print: Anatomy Hands Bones Teeth Human Male

(buy it now price, $17.68)

Vintage Medical Hand Model-Merck Advertisement

(winning bid, $71)

Women Study Anatomy YWCA Photo Poster

(buy it now price, $18.98)

Antique 1918 Biology Anatomical Poster

(buy it now price, $276.25)