Elinor Widmont was born c. 1920 and grew up on her family's farm in Dayton, Ohio.[1] Her parents worked as a mechanical engineer and a quality control manager.[1]
She attended Dayton's Fairview High School, graduating in 1939.[1] After high school, she planned to become a registered nurse, enrolling at the University of Cincinnati College of Nursing.[1] However, one of her professors noticed her talent for illustration, and she was referred to the School of Arts as Applied to Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, where she graduated as a certified medical illustrator in 1944.[1]
She would go on to spend 40 years as a medical illustrator at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.[1][2] Her first notable contribution to the field came in 1946, when she illustrated Richard Wesley TeLinde's seminal Operative Gynecology, which she would help update throughout its first six editions.[1][3]
In 1944, Elinor married fellow Hopkins alum David Bodian, a medical scientist who laid the groundwork for the polio vaccine.[1][2][4] They collaborated frequently, with Elinor illustrating some of David's articles throughout his career.[2][4] The couple had five children and were married until his death in 1992.[1][2][5]
Elinor Widmont Bodian also worked as an abstract painter.[1][2][4] Her paintings have been exhibited at the Baltimore Museum of Art, among other venues.[1] In addition, she was known as an anti-bigotry and anti-war activist.[1]
At Johns Hopkins, the Elinor Widmont Bodian Scholarship in Medical Art was established in her honor in 2000.[1][6]
Despite debilitating arthritis, she continued to paint until her final days.[1] She died in 2011 at age 90.[1][7]