Sir John Carew Eccles AC FRS FAA (1903–1997) won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1963 for his discoveries concerning the ionic mechanisms involved in excitation and inhibition in the peripheral and central portions of the nerve cell membrane. Educated at the University of Melbourne, he won a Rhodes Scholarship in 1925 and at Oxford joined the laboratory of neuroscientist Sir Charles Sherrington. He attained his DPhil in 1929 and afterwards held positions in Oxford, Sydney and Otago before coming to Canberra in 1952 to take up the role of Foundation Chair of Physiology at the John Curtin School of Medical Research. Artist Pamela MacFarlane met Eccles when her husband, physiologist Victor Macfarlane, became a Professorial Fellow at the School in 1959. Born in New Zealand, MacFarlane completed a Master’s degree in Zoology at the University of Otago and studied at the Dunedin School of Art before working as an illustrator at the University of Western Australia. During her time in Canberra, she painted a commissioned work for the ANU’s Bruce Hall, and made several pastel drawings of Eccles. The whereabouts of the other drawings are unknown. President of the Australian Academy of Science from 1957 until 1961, Eccles worked in the USA from 1966 until his retirement.
Gift of an anonymous donor 2007
© Estate of Pam Macfarlane
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