History and Art of the Microscope

The largest public collection of antique microscopes in the world, the Golub Collection at UC Berkeley, contains about 170 antique microscopes and books dating from c1660 to 1908. The bulk of the collection was donated by Orville J. Golub between 1997 and 2010.

Thanks to the Golub Collection’s Dr. Steve Ruzin and the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, friend of NHSM, Sue Fierston was able to study the instruments first-hand. She created a series of drawings and paintings which were displayed at NIH in Bethesda. In this presentation, we will learn about the history of the microscope from the curator of the Golub Collection, Dr. Ruzin and from Sue about how the collection inspired  her art.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS:

Steve Ruzin grew up in his grandmother’s garden, where a lifelong love of plants started. At the age of 12, he got his first microscope. With a BS, MS and PhD in Botany, Dr. Ruzin has been at UC Berkley since 1989, teaching and researching (retired in 2022, awarded Emeritus in 2023). Ruzin became curator of the Golub Collection of antique microscopes at UCB in 2004 and was a regular lecturer at a microscope institute in Chicago. At the present, he remains Curator of the Golub Collection of antique microscopes, and still volunteers regularly in his former lab, the Biological Imaging Facility. Dr. Ruzin is putting the finishing touches on a book on techniques in light microscopy (Oxford University Press) and looking ahead to his next project, a book on the History of the Microscope, featuring the Golub Collection.

Sue Fierston, friend of NHSM, is a printmaker and current president of the international Nature Printing Society, a worldwide group of artists who are dedicated to nature printing in all forms. NPS members print real fish and leaves as well as tree bark and spiderwebs. Sue holds nature printmaking workshops in the spring and fall at the Smithsonian Associates and the Natural History Society of Maryland. Her prints and paintings can be seen at: suefierston.com and on Instagram at: @suefierston_leaves_three_ways. In June 2020, Swinging Bridge Press published her book Into the Woods: Families Making Art With Nature.