Kevin Kane has written about the painting by Barbara Hepworth of Garnett Passe performing a tonsillectomy, and wondered about the way in which the gag appears to be suspended. This article traces historically the various methods of holding the gag for tonsillectomy, and postulates that what is illustrated in the Hepworth painting is a jack owned by the late Dr Sydney Cocks, who not only was a friend of Passe but who also commenced the discussions with Passe's widow, Barbara, concerning the formation by her of a trust to support young Australian ENT surgeons, which eventually became The Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams Memorial Foundation.

The Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams Foundation, a major medical research foundation in Melbourne, has recently acquired a hitherto unknown and uncatalogued painting by Dame Barbara Hepworth, the celebrated British sculptor and artist. It is of the Foundation's nominal patron Garnett Passe performing a tonsillectomy, probably at the London Clinic, in 1948. This article gives an account of Barbara Hepworth and her relationships with Garnett Passe and Norman Capener, the two surgeons who introduced her to this subject and who led to the creation of this unique work of art.