by Dawne Lucas
Medical illustrator Frank H. Netter with his daughter Francine Netter Roberson
Francine Netter Roberson was born and raised on Long Island, but her Tar Heel roots run deep. Roberson’s mother, Mary McFadyen (1905-1977), grew up Greensboro, and attended UNC’s two-year medical school. She then transferred to New York University to finish her medical training, where she met fellow student Frank H. Netter, a successful commercial artist known for his medical illustrations. Netter and McFadyen married in 1931, and both interned at Bellevue Hospital.
Frank H. Netter then began his surgery practice and joined the surgical staff at The Mt. Sinai Hospital. During the Great Depression, Netter began drawing pictures for pharmaceutical companies to supplement his income, which was so successful that in 1934, he resigned from Mt. Sinai Hospital and began drawing pictures full time. Beginning in 1937, Netter made pictures for the Ciba Pharmaceutical Company, later CIBA-GEIGY Corporation, a relationship that lasted until his death in 1991. Netter was a prolific artist creating over 4000 full color medical illustrations for CIBA-GEIGY. The results of this partnership were: the Atlas of Human Anatomy (now in its sixth edition); the Clinical Symposia series of monographs; and the eight-volume set Ciba Collection of Medical Illustrations. For decades, medical students throughout the world have learned from these drawings. “The older doctors all grew up with him and the young students still use him,” Roberson said of her father’s works, in a recent phone interview.
Roberson received her Bachelor of Arts degree from North Carolina State University in 1967, where her cousin, Ralph Mills, was photographer in the Department of Visual Aids. In 1997, she returned to North Carolina to take a job at IBM in the Research Triangle, and received her MBA from UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School in 2000.
When Netter died in 1991, Roberson acquired the many sketches, papers, and autobiographical notes that were in his art studio. In 2001, Roberson donated these papers to UNC’s Health Sciences Library. “I had boxes and boxes of his papers in my garage and I didn’t want them to be ruined,” Roberson explained. Although other universities also wanted the papers, she chose to donate them to UNC because of her and her mother’s personal connection. She also wanted them to be in a place where she could access them on a regular basis. “I think it has worked out really well,” said Roberson, who published her father’s biography, Medicine’s Michelangelo: The Life & Art of Frank H. Netter, MD, in 2013.
In addition donating these papers, Roberson established the Frank H. Netter, M.D. Endowment at the Health Sciences Library. She would like to see her father’s sketches digitized. Roberson also established the Frank H. Netter MD Memorial Scholarship in the Art as Applied to Medicine graduate program at Johns Hopkins University, and contributed to the establishment of the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University in North Haven, Connecticut. She has also served on the North Carolina Museum of History Associates Board of Directors and the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Board of Visitors.
Roberson lives in Raleigh with her husband, Ralph Lee Roberson. Her children and grandchildren also live in the Research Triangle area.
