Art for Science’s Sake
(Posted September 4, 1998 · Issue 37)

Cytochrome C, detail
by Irving Geis, © Irving Geis, courtesy of the Geis Archives
(click on image to see more)

Science illustrator Irving Geis, who died in July 1997 at the age of 88, was well known for his intricate images of biological macromolecular structures. His drawings and paintings influenced the way protein folding is now depicted by software.

The painting of Cytochrome C, above, shows the heme group, alpha-carbons connected by sticks that represent peptide bonds and polar sidechains extending out from the molecular surface. A profile in the December 1997 issue of Current Biology notes "Geis' artistic contribution was to emphasize the importance of the iron atom in the heme group by making it the sole source of illumination in the painting. If this suggested some of the paintings of the sixteenth century Flemish masters, so much the better. He called this his 'molecular lantern' painting."

In his later years, Geis received a Guggenheim Fellowship to help create The Geis Archives, a collection of his images, models and correspondence with the scientists with whom he worked. For more information, contact the Geis Archives, 60 East 9th Street, New York 10003, USA.

Science for Art’s Sake
Dreamtime Heroes of the Great Sandy Desert
by Tjumpo Tjapanangk
© 1997, 1998 Gallery Songlines. Photo by David Betz
Acrylic on Canvas
24 x 18, 1995
(click on image to see more)

The luminous nodes and pathways in Tjumpo Tjapanangk's painting reflect his imaginative understanding of the physical and spiritual world of Balgo Hills, a desert community in northwestern Australia. Gallery Songlines provides a beautiful and well-documented collection of this work, a comprehensive guide to aboriginal art and culture, and links to their San Francisco and Amsterdam offices which exhibit and sell original works.Curator David Betz writes:

This painting is a landscape or map of the artists country which follows the Dreamtracks of the principal Dreamtime ancestral heroes through his country. The lines are dry creek beds along which the ancestor spirits traveled and the circles which are connected up by them are water holes where these spirits rested and camped during their journeys.

DNA Phase Transition by Michael W. Davidson: A Portrait of DNA by Roger Berry; (Issue 35 · posted July 24, 1998)
Mouse fibroblasts (160x), Fluorescence by Barbara A. Danowski: Lost Referential by LP Demers & Bill Vorn; (Issue 33 · posted June 23, 1998)
Drug molecules from Gayle Gross de Nunez and SAVANTES: Traveler on the Yellow Wave by William S. Burroughs; (Issue 30 · posted May 29, 1998)
Frog Reconstructions from The Whole Frog Project: Desert Iguana by Carol Selter; (Issue 28 · posted April 17, 1998)
Images from Nature,: an illustrated catalog from London's Natural History Museum; (Issue 25 · posted February 20, 1998)
Breath Taken: The Landscape & Biography of Asbestos,: an exhibition by Bill Ravanesi; (Issue 24 · posted January 30, 1998)
Doomsday by Ulla Godwin: Excerpt from Metropolis by Fritz Lang; (Issue 21 · posted December 5, 1997)
Open Heart Surgery Movie from The Franklin Institute Science Museum: Donor Lymph Nodes by Max Aguilera-Hellweg; (Issue 20 · posted November 14, 1997)
Banana Exploding by Andrew Davidhazy, and: Nature Reborn by Ming Fay; (Issue 18 · posted October 17, 1997)
Lincoln by Bela Julesz and Leon Harmon, and: Keith/four times by Chuck Close; (Issue 17 · posted October 2, 1997)
Human, full body scan by Meditherm, and: Recollections by Ed Tannenbaum; (Issue 16 · posted September 19, 1997)
Praying Mantis by Kenneth J. Stein, and: StareCase by Alan Dorin; (Issue 15 · posted September 5, 1997)