Julian Trevelyan, Walter Maclay and Eric Guttmann: drawing the boundary between psychiatry and art at the Maudsley Hospital.
British journal for the history of science December 1, 2019 Eilís Kempley 3 citations
In 1938, psychiatrists Eric Guttmann and Walter Maclay gave mescaline to artists, including surrealist Julian Trevelyan, to record their hallucinations visually. The study, published as 'Mescaline hallucinations in artists', occurred as psychiatry sought scientific legitimacy. The Maudsley Hospital, newly established, employed Jewish émigré psychiatrists from Germany, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, who were interested in psychoactive drugs and visual media for studying psychopathology. The artists, already using hallucinogens for revolutionary aims, cooperated with the psychiatrists. Examining how the images were produced and their legacy reveals overlapping ecologies of knowledge and experience between the two groups.