Darling Get Me a Baby Made

On 25 July 1978, the world’s first test-tube baby—Louise Brown—was born in England and the news caused great excitement for the new possibility of creating humans by zygotes fertilised outside of human body. A few months later, in October, the world’s second such baby—Durga—was born in Calcutta. This pathbreaking medical achievement was the inspiration behind this etching and aquatint work made the very next year by Anupam Sud, who has given it a rather cheeky title, alluding to the ease with which babies could now be ‘delivered’—notice the queue of women for a turn at the telephone. The artist pays tribute to the pioneers of this medical wonder— Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe—by placing their images on the wall behind.