Project Facade: Case studies

An Artistic Response to the Gillies Archive

Since 2004, Paddy Hartley has been creating new sculpture in response to the patient records of First World War Servicemen collated by Dr Andrew Bamji housed at The Gillies Archive, Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup (QMH).

These amazing documents provide a rare and unique insight into the origins and development of surgical facial reconstruction pioneered by New Zealander Sir Harold Gillies and his surgical team based at the QMH plastic surgery unit during and after The First World War. Ever the pioneer, Gillies sought to design surgical techniques and chart the progress of his patient's treatment utilising the skills of non-medical specialists. The services of painters, sculptors and photographers were called upon to document patient's surgical progress from admission to discharge. What remained was an archive of over 2500 patient records that chart the birth of plastic surgery.

A small selection of these patients surgical and personal stories have been interpreted in the work of Paddy Hartley and the case studies of each of those are presented.

WARNING: Many of the images on in this section are of very graphic facial injury and surgery.