Virginia Cantarella is a medical illustrator and fine artist who is known for the beauty and precision of her drawings and paintings.

Educated as a fine artist at the Boston Museum School, she has been a medical illustrator since the early 60s, illustrating over 20 medical textbooks.*

Cantarella started medical illustrating 32 years ago in her twenties, when her ophthalmologist asked her to do some drawings for him. He was so impressed with her drawings that he introduced her to his colleague, Richard Troutman, the world-renowned corneal surgeon who introduced microsurgery to the United States, changing all ophthalmic surgery forever. She illustrated three of his books, soon becoming recognized as an illustrator of ophthalmic surgery. Other ophthalmic surgeons, and then ophthalmic plastic surgeons, asked her to illustrate their books. During 25 years in the field, she illustrated over 20 major texts, not only in ophthalmic and ophthalmic plastic surgery but also in plastic and reconstructive surgery of the whole body and dermatological surgery, working with some of the finest surgeons in the country. ( See below for a list of her works.)

She taught medical illustration as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Long Island University for four years and assisted in teaching courses in microsurgery of the eye at Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. and the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

An accomplished painter as well as medical illustrator, Cantarella's paintings have been exhibited in many group shows. She has had one person shows at the Brownstone Gallery, the Bellanthi Gallery and Gallery 84 in New York City, at Long Island University, and at the Renssalaerville Institute of Arts and Sciences and Hudson's ArtSpace in upstate New York. She was one of 15 chosen artists, out of 200 applicants, selected for the Multiple Sclerosis Society's exhibit, "The Creative Will" which opened at NYU's Grey Gallery and then toured the United States for two years.

Ms. Cantarella has suffered from multiple sclerosis for many years but that has not slowed her prodigious output as both a painter and medical illustrator.

After raising her two children in Brooklyn, Ms. Cantarella moved to upstate New York and now lives in South Westerlo, New York with her husband Herman Shonbrun. She retired from medical illustrating in 1997, and is now devoting herself full time to her fine art.

She is a member of the Graphic Artists Guild and the Association of Medical Illustrators.

* Medical Texts (partial list):