During the Covid-19 pandemic, we have heard a lot about doctors and healthcare workers, thinking of them, as present-day heroes, facing up to death and in the battle against coronavirus.

Pictures of them have been prevalent in our daily lives, appearing on TV screens, in magazines and newspapers.

But in paintings, how do look like their daily duties ? There is a question that came to my mind, especially regarding doctors' portraits nowadays. 

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In previous centuries (mystical Middle Ages or in the Renaissance.), portraits of doctors or physicians were often painted soberly, with sombre black outfits, then with fashionable dress, surrounded by books, bones, jars, objects from their collections or medical illustrations, rather than people, emphasising their intellect over the empathy, and rarely shown dispensing medicine or interacting with their patients, to finally returned to sombre black dress, changing image of the doctor over time.

In the past, the doctor would go to the patient’s house, elegantly dressed and without the white coat. Nowadays, this happens mainly in the hospital or at the doctor’s office, wearing casual clothes, like a shirt or a jean under a white coat, sometimes with sneakers.

But techniques remain the same and are still used today, to understand the situation and make hypotheses: the doctors touch, observe and listen to people.

The depictions look drastically different from those of the past to the present in many ways, but they are linked by the same fundamental concerns: when we are at our most vulnerable, to whom should we trust our wellbeing?

For me, it is clear: to a solid, reliable, caring, empathic and trustworthy doctor, with a deep compassion and the will to improve the health of his/her patients.

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Being victim of a car crash allowed me to meet incredible doctors and push me to lead a new art project that I would never have thought to do, namely : to paint doctors' portrait.

This is during discussions with a few of them, that we united our respective world and passion for Art and Medicine, through painting, ending up offering to paint their portrait. 

Knowing that I like Art history and painting, I wondered : how look like doctors' portrait in paintings today?

After some research, I came to the conclusion that modern medicine paintings are rare and even more, the depiction of doctors in portrait nowadays. It seems to have obviously disappeared. 

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Through a few doctors portraits (cardiologist and orthopedic and trauma surgeon), I show my gratitude for the medical industry, to honor medical profession and the commitments of a few of my doctors : 

• Dr Chan-il PARK, cardiologist

• Dr Panayotis CHRISTOFILOPOULOS, orthopedic and trauma surgeon

Both are working at the Hospital de La Tour, Meyrin - Switzerland.

In doing so, I follow somewhere, a long tradition of painters, from Rembrandt (Ref: "The Dr Tulp’s Anatomy Lesson", 1632) to John Singer Sargent (Ref: "Dr Pozzi at home", 1881), or even Van Gogh (Ref: "Portrait of Dr Gachet, 1890) to the street artist Banksy (Ref: "Game change, 2020, at Southampton General Hospital), in honoring the doctors, whose dedication and expertise vastly improved the lives of all those around them, at least here, my healthy living and life.​​​​

Thanks to them and their respective team.