ABSTRACT
In 1995, surgeon Iain Hutchison decided to use the legacy of his mother (Dr Martha Redlich) to fund an artist-in-residence project at the oral and maxillofacial surgery department of St Bartholomew's and the Royal London hospitals. Hutchison had six aims for this Saving Faces project: to illustrate for the public in an acceptable, non-clinical way what is, and also isn't, possible with modern facial surgery; to illustrate that people with facial disfigurement lead normal and fulfilled lives; to allow a portrait artist access to people with extraordinary faces; to capture the emotional journey undertaken by the patient in a way that simple clinical photography cannot; to illustrate the physical surgical process necessary to treat the patients for those members of the public who might be interested in this more anatomical aspect; finally, he believed that the process of sitting for a facial portrait after surgery when the artist is totally focused on their face might be cathartic for the patients and assist in their recovery.
