From looking over the many other postings and comments about Frank’s life, the unmistakable themes are those that extoll his art, his teaching, his mentorship and his love of his family. I could add my enthusiastic endorsement of each of those as well. However, few people outside myself (and perhaps his friend Dr. Richard Restak) could know of Frank’s impact on science and medicine. Of this, I think he would be proud, too, because of his deep interest in human anatomy and admiration for the merging of art and science by visionaries like da Vinci, Brunelleschi and Piranesi. Let me explain.
In the autumn of 1976 I took Frank’s figure drawing class at George Washington University. I remember that there were about 25 of us in the class, and that Frank had a way of making himself available to students to be able to get to know them by more than just their seat location. In my case, I learned that if I showed up early for the evening class, I could help him re-position the chairs in the studio, after which we would move to his nearby office for conversation until time for class. During those sessions, Frank would always find a way to engage me, to plumb my interests, and then pull out innumerable books to illustrate how a particular master rendered some feature of interest. I became comfortable talking with him like I’d never done with any other professor before, and I’m sure I said my share of youthful dumb things. In class, assignments involved sketching from the model followed by a critique of those efforts. Students would arrange their drawings near the model stand and Frank would pass from one to another while providing instructive commentary. Because this was a beginning figure drawing course, many of the efforts were (by my youthful perspective) appalling. But this pattern of sketch-and-critique occurred for session after session. One day, during one of our now-routine pre-class conversations, I blurted out my low opinion of the “quality” of many of our drawings and asked Frank how he psychologically dealt with seeing all these seriously bad drawings day after day? His thoughtful reply has stuck with me for the rest of my life. He said that sure, it is easy to point out the mistakes or ugly efforts. But in doing that, it would be stating the obvious and, most likely, the student knew that the image was unsuccessful too. On the other hand, if he could find just one small component of each drawing that was successful, and emphasize that feature, the student could also learn what worked and would be encouraged to repeat it. Over time, this process of slowly accumulating small successes would sum to learning, experience and much better drawing.
This was a revelation to me and it succinctly described a method to teach the acquisition of expert performance. It should be no surprise then, that this teaching philosophy has stood at the core of my anatomy courses for over 40 years of medical, dental and science students at my university. Especially in laboratory settings, the expression of a novice student upon learning that they had done something well is both satisfying and rewarding. As is the reassurance that the student will carry forward that observation or insight further into their professional practice to the benefit of their patients. By my estimation, over the years at least 5000 doctors have been the beneficiaries of Frank’s “identify successful effort” approach to teaching. Needless to say, in addition to his paintings, etchings and engravings that hang in my house, Frank walks with me every day into my classroom.
Happy Birthday Frank!