Hugo Backmansson: 12 ophthalmologists

February’s object of the month is Hugo Backmansson’s painting “12 Ophthalmologists” from the Galleria Academica portrait collection of the University of Helsinki. The piece hangs in the Emergency Outpatient Clinic for Eye Diseases. Located in the Meilahti medical campus, the clinic was originally affiliated with the University, but was transferred to the Helsinki University Central Hospital in 1958 and to the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS) in 2000. The Helsinki University Museum and the HUS Museum Committee performed an inventory on the historical collections of the clinic last year and divided the objects in the collection between them.

Completed in 1923, the painting, which is also known as “The meeting of ophthalmologists”, depicts a group of twelve ophthalmologists gathered around a green table. Some seem to be engaged in a lively discussion while others are lost in thought. Backmansson has rendered each character as a distinct personality without ignoring the group dynamics in the piece.

A painting with 11 men and one woman in a room. The people are dressed in dark clothing, there is a green table at the forefront with windows and a yellowish wall in the background. The painting is in a bronze-coloured decorative frame.
Hugo Backmansson: 12 ophthalmologists, 1923, oil on canvas, 71cm x 100 cm, University of Helsinki. Photo: Helsinki University Museum / Timo Huvilinna.

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