The Beautiful Brain: The drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal

  • Visual arts
  • Minneapolis
  • Sat, January 28 —
    Sun, May 21, 2017
The Beautiful Brain: The drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal

This traveling exhibition presents the extraordinary drawings of Ramón y Cajal, the father of modern neuroscience.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, a Spanish pathologist, histologist, neuroscientist, and Nobel laureate, was also an exceptional artist. He drew the brain in a way that provided a clarity exceeding that achieved by photographs. Combining scientific and artistic skills to produce drawings with extraordinary scientific and aesthetic qualities, his theory that the brain is composed of individual cells rather than a tangled single web is the basis of neuroscience today. Cajal’s astonishing depictions of the brain —which combine cutting-edge scientific knowledge with consummate draftsmanship— offer much greater clarity than photographs, so much so that they are still in wide use today.

Eighty of Cajal’s drawings, many appearing for the first time in the United States, will be accompanied by a selection of contemporary visualizations of the brain, photographs, historic books, and scientific tools. After the debut at Weisman Art Museum, the exhibition will travel to university galleries and museums, throughout the United States and Canada.

Venue

Venue map

The Frederick Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, 333 E River Pkwy, Minneapolis, MN 55455
612-625-9494

Admission

Free

More information

Weisman Art Museum

Credits

Presented by the Weisman Art Museum and Cajal Institute in collaboration with Ricardo Martinez Murillo, Eric Newman, Alfonso Araque, and Jan Dubinsky.

Tools

Newsletter

Don't miss events like this one! Subscribe to our bimonthly newsletter to stay informed. Our subscribers also get exclusive access to select online content such as free screenings or concerts.

Sign up for our newsletter