For $4.98, they could recreate in miniature the hidden workings of the human body, from the dark muscle of the heart to the kidney, liver, and spleen. “From skin to skeleton...assemble, remove, replace all organs!” read the box.
The kits—The Visible Woman, which is now on view as part of the Getty Research Institute’s exhibition Flesh and Bones: The Art of Anatomy, and its counterpart, The Visible Man—were manufactured by plastics company Renwal, whose popular catalogs featured dollhouse miniatures and WWII fighter jets. Renwal’s new anatomical toys had a clear plastic, human-shaped shell accompanied by a display stand, pamphlet of medical illustrations, and the requisite body parts. As do-it-yourself kits go, the assembly of The Visible Man and The Visible Woman was a lesson in dissection—minus the genitalia. (The toys, prudishly smooth, continued a tradition of omitting sexual organs.) Combining education and entertainment, the toys were so successful that tiny transparent horses and dogs soon followed.
With an optional feature called “The Miracle of Creation,” The Visible Woman was even accessorized with a pregnant uterus and breastplate, so children could learn the mechanics of the female reproductive system. The add-on echoed the depictions of female bodies from earlier centuries, delicately sculpted in ivory or wax, often arranged in beatific sleeping postures, with torsos that could be peeled open to reveal a tiny fetus nestled in a bed of organs.
The history of “Visible” people begins much earlier. The toys were miniature versions of a six-foot statue called The Transparent Man, which first debuted in 1930 at the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum in Dresden as part of a state-sponsored public health and hygiene campaign. The Transparent Man, his arms raised triumphantly skyward, was composed of a metal skeleton encased in a shell of clear plastic (what was then a new technology), the inner parts thrillingly lit up with the push of a button. The purpose of The Transparent Man was to evoke awe at the sight of the human form, so spectacularly revealed, without the discomfiting display of blood or flesh. This wonder, its creators believed, would inspire visitors to lead healthier lives. The statue symbolized modernity, the complexities of the body made clean and simple.
The Transparent Man was so crowd-pleasing that multiple replicas were cast and shipped to countries around the world, from Sweden to Japan, to be seen by millions. In the United States, a Transparent Man was unveiled at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. With the new wonder of sound engineering, a 10-minute recorded lecture described the function of different organs as the sound of a human heart thudded dramatically in the background. (Hitler came to power that same year, and in Germany Transparent Man would be repurposed as a tool of Nazi propaganda. Later, in 1949, the models remained popular enough with the new Communist regime that a transparent couple was gifted to Stalin for his 70th birthday.) The Transparent Man was then displayed at traveling exhibitions and science museums across the United States, inspiring the set of toys.
In 1936 a Transparent Woman called “Miss Science,” donated by a Missouri underwear manufacturer, appeared at the New York Museum of Science and Industry and was subsequently exhibited in 100 American towns. In 1950 another Transparent Woman was installed at the Cleveland Health Museum, whose director, Bruno Gebhard, had come from the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum to preach the gospel of public health education. After a contest in the local newspaper, this statue was named Juno. In the museum’s Science Theater, a voice recording made by a local homemaker narrated the inner workings of Juno’s biology for generations of Ohio schoolchildren, as parts of the body were neatly illuminated one at a time.
Today these see-through models are not so much objects of wonder as curiosities, the once-miraculous plastic yellowed with age. And yet the desire to represent the interior of the human body stretches back centuries—the mysteries of women’s bodies, especially, have long been subject to scrutiny and careful study. Now, as machines count our heartbeats and daily “steps,” we still strive to understand our inner workings. Perhaps this desire is an enduring one: we need to picture our literal inner selves, the most intimate yet enigmatically concealed part of us.
Flesh and Bones: The Art of Anatomy is on view at the Getty Center through July 10, 2022.
