Impressionistic painting of dark-haired man with tie and white coat. The head is tightly rendered but the torso and background are very loose and incomplete.

Portrait of Fuller Albright (1900-1969)

Albright was a physician and endocrinologist from 1929 to 1958 at the MGH and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School from 1942 to 1960. (It so happens that this portrait was painted by fellow MGHer Fritz Talbot, the first chief of the Children’s Medical Service, serving from 1910 to 1931.) Albright was the preeminent clinical and investigative endocrinologist of his day. He used his clinical knowledge and a few tools to elucidate the major hormonal functions of the adrenal cortex and to clarify the pathophysiology of Cushing’s Syndrome. Some of Albright’s achievements include elucidating the major hormonal functions of the adrenal cortex, clarifying the pathophysiology of Cushing’s Syndrome, treatment of congenital adrenal hyperplasia, significant contributions to the study of the renal effects of parathyroid hormone, estrogen use in osteoporosis, Vitamin-D-resistant rickets, and the establishment of the endocrine unit of the MGH. It was there that he also created an endocrinology service with a special ovarian dysfunction clinic and a kidney stone clinic, which was known as “The Quarry.”