McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Hortense Douglas Cantlie Fonds
Fonds
0.01 m of textual records ; 235 medical illustrations ; 37 charcoal drawings ; 10 negatives ; 60 photographs ; 1 box of drafting instruments ; 1 sketch box ; 3 reproductions of a print by Max Brödel ; 2 book illustrations from a painting
Hortense Douglas Cantlie was born in Yonkers, New York, in 1901. From 1909 to 1918 she attended Miss Edgar and Miss Cramp’s School in Montreal. In 1921 she studied charcoal drawing from casts at the Montreal Art Association and in 1922 took art classes in New York. From 1925 to 1926 she studied at John Hopkins University under Max Brödel, where she obtained a certificate in Art as Applied to Medicine in 1926. From 1924 to 1935 Hortense Cantlie worked as a medical illustrator, principally at the Montreal General Hospital. Copies of her illustrations were used in medical articles and books, including material published by Dr. Wilder Penfield. The most famous illustrations are somatic and motor homunculi. She designed and made a brain model with convolutions represented as babies - the Brain Children - for the dedication plaque of the McConnell Wing at the Montreal Neurological Hospital (1953). After her marriage to Stephen Cantlie in 1935, she did few medical illustrations. Hortense Cantlie died in 1979.
The Hortense Douglas Cantlie fonds is comprised mainly of medical illustrations and drawings (1924-1935) including her illustrations as a student at John Hopkins University, as well as two portfolios of about 37 charcoal sketches completed, while she studied art in Montreal and New York. Other material consists of three medical illustrations file books (one with many photographs of illustrations) dated from 1926 to 1952 with illustrations also by other artists, reprints of articles with Hortense Douglas Cantlie illustrations (1924-1934), one medical illustration signed Ruth Foster, a sketch book with a preliminary drawing of Brain Children (1950's), a photo of a stained glass window designed for the Royal Victoria Hospital (1927-1928) and reproductions of prints by Max Brödel. There are reprints of an article written by Hortense Douglas Cantlie, The Reproduction of Pathological Specimens by the Use of the Wax Moulage (1929), two book illustrations in colour, one by Hortense Douglas Cantlie and another by J.M.T. Finney, a case of drafting instruments used by Hortense Douglas Cantlie, photographs of her illustrations (1926-1928) for a book by Wilder Penfield, as well as other negatives, and prints of medical illustrations.
Deposited by Eleanor Sweezey on November 24, 1986
Access: restricted; many of the medical illustrations have patient information (e.g., name, age) and a few have typed medical histories attached.
Textual records, handwritten and typescript