In this engaging talk, Barry Coller, MD, and Bobbi Coller, Ph.D., describe and discuss works of art related to the onslaught of three major historic pandemics, placing them in the context of the medical understanding of the disease at the time of the outbreaks.

List of Images:
1. Map showing the spread of the Black Death 1347-50. Source: The New York Times, September 1, 2009; Adapted from “Plagues and Peoples,” William H. McNeill.
2. Self-Portrait, Pieter Brueghel, 1565, Albertina Museum
3. Brueghel, “The Triumph of Death,” 1562, Prado Museum
4. Detail, “The Triumph of Death”
5. Detail, “The Triumph of Death”
6. St. Roch, c. 1516, illuminated manuscript from the prayer book of Joanna of Ghistelles, Ghent, The Netherlands
7. St. Roch, 1510, stained glass window, Germany, Metropolitan Museum of Art
8. San Rocco, papier-maché figure, Fratta/Umbertide, Italy
9. The Plague Doctor in Rome. Copper engraving published by Paul Furst, c. 1656.
10. Massacre of the Jews, Strasbourg, February 14, 1349. Yeshiva University
11. Massacre of the Jews, Erfurt, Germany, March 21, 1349. Wikipedia
12. Jean-Antoine Gros, “Napoleon in the Pest House in Jaffa,” 1804, The Louvre
13. Detail, “Napoleon in the Pest House in Jaffa”
14. “The King’s Touch,” Clovis I Healing scrofula, c.1500, France. Wikipedia
15. Nicolas Poussin, “Christ Healing the Blind,” 1650, The Louvre
16. Detail, “Christ Healing the Blind”
17. Robert White, Charles II applying the King’s Touch to heal scrofula, England, 1684. Wikipedia
18. Gold ‘Angels’ given to patients in conjunction with the King’s Touch. Wikipedia
19. Temporary ward for influenza patients, 1918, Camp Funston, Kansas, Otis Historical Archives, National Museum of Health and Medicine
20. Edward Munch, “Self -Portrait After the Spanish Flu,” 1919, The Munch Museum, Norway
21. Photograph, Trolley car with sign “Spit Spreads Death,” Philadelphia, 1918. Mutter Museum of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia
22. New York City sanitation worker and policeman, 1918; Graph of New York City cases of influenza and pneumonia, 1918. Influenza Museum, University of Michigan Library
23. Photograph, “Transporting the Sick,” 1918, Cecil County, Maryland
24. Influenza genetic drift and shift. Microbiology Info.com
25. 1918 Influenza virus and subsequent pandemic influenza viruses. Taubenberger, Science Translational Medicine, 2019
26. Photograph, Children being treated for polio in iron lungs in Rancho Los Amigos Hospital; Downey, California, 1940s or 1950s
27. Photograph, “Children Lined Up to Receive the Polio Vaccine,” 1954, Memphis Commercial Appeal, Source; National Museum of American History
28. Photograph, “Jonas Salk,” 1954; March of Dimes
29. Photograph of children after receiving the Salk vaccine, 1954; March of Dimes
30. Guy Colwell, “Epidemic,” 2009, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California

Barry Coller is the David Rockefeller Professor of Medicine; Head, Allen and Frances Adler Laboratory of Blood and Vascular Biology; Physician-in-Chief of The Rockefeller University Hospital; and Vice President for Medical Affairs at The Rockefeller University. He also serves as the founding Director of the Rockefeller University Center for Clinical and Translational Science. From 1993 to 2001, Dr. Coller was the Murray M. Rosenberg Professor of Medicine and Chairman of the Samuel Bronfman Department of Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. His research interests have focused on blood clotting and thrombosis. He developed with scientists at Centocor an antiplatelet drug that has been administered to more than five million patients worldwide to prevent complications of coronary artery stenting. Dr. Coller is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Bobbi Coller is an art historian, independent curator, and art educator. She received a BS in Education from New York University and a Ph.D. in Art History from the Graduate Center of The City University of New York. She has taught Modern and Contemporary art history at Long Island University, CW Post Campus. In addition, she has curated over thirty exhibitions, including “The Artist’s Mother: Portraits and Homages” shown at the National Portrait Gallery, and several others which were circulated throughout the United States by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibitions Service. She currently directs the OZ Gallery in New York. Dr. Coller has been the Chairperson of the Advisory Board of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs, New York, for many years, which is dedicated to preserving the legacies of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner.