Paintings in Hospitals is an arts in healthcharity in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1959,[1] the charity's services include the provision of artwork loans, art projects and art workshops to health and social care organisations. The charity's activities are based on clinical evidence demonstrating health and wellbeing benefits of the arts to patients and care staff.[2][3]
The charity owns and manages the Paintings in Hospitals collection: a loan collection of modern and contemporary art.[4] The Paintings in Hospitals collection is the only known national art loan collection with the specific purpose of improving health and wellbeing.[5]
Paintings in Hospitals is the healthcare partner of the Arts Council Collection.[6] The charity was recognised by the Department of Health and Arts Council England as a key provider of arts and health services in the 2007 UK government publication "A prospectus for arts and health".[7][8]
History
Paintings in Hospitals was founded in 1959 by Sheridan Russell, Head Almoner at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery.[9] From the early 1950s, Russell had observed that the paintings of contemporary artists were far more effective than the existing reproductions in brightening up the corridors and waiting rooms of the hospital.[10] Russell persuaded his art-world contacts to donate artworks for display in the hospital's corridors and waiting rooms. Initially, administration of the hospital art scheme was through an advisory committee of art experts, established under the leadership of Sir Dennis Proctor, a former chairman of the Tate Gallery.[10]
Russell formalised the art loan programme in 1959 under the name Paintings in Hospitals. In 1960 it gained significant financial support from the Nuffield Foundation over a period of 15 years to establish a permanent collection of artworks for loan to other hospitals.[11] Early acquisitions for the Paintings in Hospitals collection included paintings by John Bratby, Gillian Ayres and Mary Fedden.[12] Within a period of ten years, the Paintings in Hospitals scheme grew to include 40 hospitals.[10]
In 1971, when the scheme registered as a charity, a board of trustees administered the programme. Board members at that time included Sir Dennis Proctor, Lawrence Gowing, and Eric Newton, who were later joined by Roger de Grey, former President of the Royal Academy and Lord Croft.[10]
In the 1980s, the charity began to develop a regional network of volunteer committees, enabling hospitals and other types of care sites outside of London to access the Paintings in Hospitals collection.[13] In 1991, the charity provided seed funding and a loan of 100 paintings to establish Paintings in Hospitals Scotland. In 2005, Paintings in Hospitals Scotland became an independent Scottish charity with a name change to Art in Healthcare.[14]
Paintings in Hospitals celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2009.[15] The charity celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2019,[16] with events including a collection of 60 weekly articles from notable artists, patients, and carers[17] and a panel discussion on the future of the arts-in-health sector at the Royal College of Physicians, with speakers Edmund de Waal, Errol Francis, Val Huet, Victoria Tischler, and Ed Vaizey.[18][19] Paintings in Hospitals was shortlisted for the 'Special Recognition Award' at the Charity Today Awards 2019.[20]
The Paintings in Hospitals collection
The Paintings in Hospitals collection is widely recognised as the first national collection of art specifically created to support physical and mental health.[13][12] The collection holds approximately 4,000 paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, animations and photographs from artists including Andy Warhol and Antony Gormley. Around 70% of the collection is on public display at all times.[21] Artworks on loan from Paintings in Hospitals to health and social care organisations in the United Kingdom are seen by approximately two million patients every year.[22]
In January 2002, The Saatchi Gallery donated 50 artworks to Paintings in Hospitals, including works by artists Simon Callery, Nicholas May, Joanna Price, Stephen Murphy, Carol Rhodes and Robert Wilson.[23][24]
In 2011, Paintings in Hospitals unveiled their children's collection, designed to make healthcare sites more comfortable for children, especially teens and young adults. The artworks in the children's collection were chosen through workshops and discussions with young people from Tate Collective, the Tate's youth forum, and included artworks by Albert Irvin, John Hoyland, and Quentin Blake.[25][26] Paintings in Hospitals' discussions with Tate Collective also resulted in the charity commissioning three new artworks, to be permanently added to its collection, by New York-based artist Jon Burgerman.[26]
The chair of the charity's Collection committee is trustee David Cleaton-Roberts, director at Cristea Roberts Gallery.[28]
Partnerships
Paintings in Hospitals is the healthcare partner of the Arts Council Collection.[6] The Arts Council Collection has made 100 works of art available to Paintings in Hospitals enabling the charity to bring a new selection of work by contemporary artists into the healthcare system.[6] In 2018, the two organisations partnered to produce the touring exhibition and symposium Rooted in the Landscape, designed to explore the relationship between art, wellbeing and the natural environment. The exhibition included artists Andy Goldsworthy, Marc Quinn, and Turner Prize-nominated Janice Kerbel.[17][29]
The charity has worked with the V&A Museum over a period of 15 years to produce seven hospital exhibitions of artworks from the museum's collection. For some of the artworks, these exhibitions marked the first time they had been exhibited publicly.[30][31]
In 2012, Paintings in Hospitals was gifted five posters by the London Transport Museum as part of the museum’s Access to Art initiative. In celebration of the gift, Paintings in Hospitals partnered with the museum to invite a group of carers to create an original soundscape.[32][33][34]
In 2016, Paintings in Hospitals partnered with the Wallace Collection and contemporary artist Tom Ellis to commission four large-scale paintings for GP surgeries across London.[37][38] In the same year, the charity partnered with the Ingram Collection of Modern British Art to bring artworks from the collection to care homes in the South East of England.[39]
In 2017, the charity began a three-year partnership with the Central Saint Martins art school. Students from the school's BA Culture, Criticism and Curation course explore the ways in which art might support the mental health of their peers with an annual exhibition at the Menier Gallery and at King's College London.[40][41]
In 2018 the charity partnered with the Barns-Graham Trust seeking an emerging curator to develop a new touring exhibition of works by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. The resulting exhibition, Linear Meditations, was shortlisted for 'Art Installation of the Year' at the Design in Mental Health Awards 2019.[42]
In 2020, Paintings in Hospitals partnered with Google Arts & Culture to bring part of their art collection onto the online platform and to collaborate with the artist Thomas Croft on the virtual exhibition Healthcare Heroes, which featured over 700 artworks from the Portraits for NHS Heroes initiative.[46][47]
Related Research Articles
Bridget Louise Riley is an English painter known for her op art paintings. She lives and works in London, Cornwall and the Vaucluse in France.
Ian Davenport is an English abstract painter and former Turner Prize nominee.
Sir Peter Thomas Blake is an English pop artist. He co-created the sleeve design for the Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. His other works include the covers for two of The Who's albums, the cover of the Band Aid single "Do They Know It's Christmas?", and the Live Aid concert poster. Blake also designed the 2012 Brit Award statuette.
The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art and an independent charity opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985. Exhibitions which drew upon the collection of Charles Saatchi, starting with US artists and minimalism, moving to the Damien Hirst-led Young British Artists, followed by shows purely of painting, led to Saatchi Gallery becoming a recognised authority in contemporary art globally. It has occupied different premises, first in North London, then the South Bank by the River Thames, and finally in Chelsea, Duke of York's HQ, its current location. In 2019 Saatchi Gallery became a registered charity and begun a new chapter in its history. Recent exhibitions include the major solo exhibition of the artist JR, JR: Chronicles, and London Grads Now in September 2019 lending the gallery spaces to graduates from leading fine art schools who experienced the cancellation of physical degree shows due to the pandemic.
Gavin Turk is a British artist from Guildford in Surrey, and was considered to be one of the Young British Artists. Turk's oeuvre deals with issues of authenticity and identity, engaged with modernist and avant-garde debates surrounding the 'myth' of the artist and the 'authorship' of a work of art.
Art Fund is an independent membership-based British charity, which raises funds to aid the acquisition of artworks for the nation. It gives grants and acts as a channel for many gifts and bequests, as well as lobbying on behalf of museums and galleries and their users. It relies on members' subscriptions and public donations for funds and does not receive funding from the government or the National Lottery.
Bernard Cohen is a British painter. He is regarded as one of the leading British abstract artists of his time.
John Bellany was a Scottish painter.
Chantal Joffe is an American-born English artist based in London. Her often large-scale paintings generally depict women and children. In 2006, she received the prestigious Charles Wollaston Award from the Royal Academy.
Sheffield, England, has a large population of amateur, working and professional visual artists and artworks.
Lisa Milroy is an Anglo-Canadian artist known for her still life paintings of everyday objects. In the 1980s, Milroy’s paintings featured ordinary objects depicted against an off-white background. Subsequently her imagery expanded, which led to a number of different series including landscapes, buildings and portraits. As her approaches to still life diversified, so did her manner of painting, giving rise to a range of stylistic innovations. Throughout her practice, Milroy has been fascinated by the relation between stillness and movement, and the nature of making and looking at painting.
Outset Contemporary Art Fund is an arts charity established in 2003, and based in London, England.
Charlotte Verity, Lady Le Brun is a painter living and working in London, UK. A monograph on her work, Charlotte Verity was published by Ridinghouse, in November 2016.
Chisenhale Gallery is a non-profit contemporary art gallery based in London's East End. The gallery occupies the ground level of a former veneer factory on Chisenhale Road, situated in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, near Victoria Park and flanking the Hertford Union Canal. Housed in the same building are two other distinct initiatives: Chisenhale Studios and Chisenhale Dance Space, named also for the road on which they reside.
Susie Hamilton is an English artist. She lives and works in London and is represented by Paul Stolper Gallery.
John Loker is a contemporary British abstract painter based in East Anglia and represented by Flowers Gallery, London and New York. Loker has numerous artworks in public and private collections, and has exhibited in some of the UK's major institutions since the 1970s.
Vikki Slowe is a British printmaker and painter.
Jean Mary Spencer was a British artist known for her abstract paintings and relief sculptures.
Piano Nobile is a commercial art gallery in London, England, specialising in twentieth-century British art. It was established by Dr Robert Travers at premises in Richmond in 1985. In 2000, the gallery moved to its current address at 129 Portland Road, London. In 2019, an additional gallery space was acquired at 96 Portland Road. Between 2008 and 2019, the gallery also had an exhibition space at Kings Place in King’s Cross.
Estelle Thompson is a British abstract painter who lives and works in London and Barbados.
↑ A prospectus for arts and health. Arts Council England,, Great Britain. Department of Health. London. 2007. pp.110–111. ISBN9780728713390. OCLC234360837.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
