Morbid Art!
January 16th, 2010
Paul Komoda is an amazing artist who previously sculpted a magnificent bust of John “The Elephant Man” Merrick. Now he’s started a “Human Pathology” series and his first entry is the wonderfully grim “Tertiary Syphilis” which is based on an infamous photograph of an actual syphilis victim.
The wonderful Coilhouse has all the details here.
Thanks to Lady Morgana for the suggestion.
Hustler Magazine published that photo in 1978. I must have been nine. I sneaked my Dad’s copy. Larry Flynt’s expose of STDs was a feature in that issue. It feature that very photo from Anthony Wisdom’s “Color Atlas of Venereology” (Mosby, 1973). It scared the living crap out of my and burned in my mind for weeks. Later on in college, I picked up that issue of Hustler at a flea market. My brain could process the image this time. It’s still pretty gnarly. I always wondered what the identity of that woman dying of tertiary syphilis was.