The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center is a New York-based cancer treatment and research centre. It was founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital, and merged with the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research in 1980.
Over the years the Centre has had a number of famous presidents of the board including the financier and philanthropist, Laurance Rockefeller, and the noted physician and author Lewis Thomas.
The Center’s 2014 annual report is noteworthy for its use of illustration. The report features the work of three artists: John Hersey, Paul Wearing, and Von. In the report, all three work in the mode of abstraction, with an emphasis on circular, almost cellular shapes.
In Hersey’s illustrations, the circular motif appears in work that is sharply delineated, with clear borders and edges. There are identifiable elements like the human eye, presented early in the report. These images are among the brightest in the report, and are presented at the beginning.
In the watercolour pieces by Wearing, his shapes are graceful, emotive; the edges blurred and overlapping. There is a gentleness to these forms. They gesture towards the biological, without being explicit. Vibrant colour—though not as startling as Hersey’s—provides for some liveliness on the page.
A single painted portrait by the British artist Von, stands out in the report among other portraits, which rely on photography. This portrait of executive vice-president and chief operating officer, John R. Gunn (retd. 2015) is a robust image, with Von’s ability to depict volume and physical heft giving the image its charge.
It’s unusual for three artists to appear in the same report and more unusual still, for their individual visual languages to harmonise the way they do here. The design company, Ideas on Purpose has pulled off a report that functions as a unified whole, though built of disparate parts.
Back
