Armoured cars (artwork)

A painting in Rita Simon's Traditional Linear styl depicting a woman in blue surrounded by armoured cars and people in military uniform. It was produced by a former nurse who was a female patient at a psychiatric day hospital and later became one of Rita Simon's private patients. Rita Simon had the following to say about the artwork: "A fascinating example of using art therapy to work through a hallucination. She arrived at the hospital and said 'I came through the village and it was full of armoured cars, very frightening', so I said 'Paint the scene.' The artist is the woman in blue on the right. When she had painted it, she had said 'They didn't look like that. Memory is correcting hallucination. A very valuable painting, almost unique." This information has been taken from notes made during conversations between Rita Simon and Wellcome staff between 1995 and 1997.

Reproduced in The Symbolism of Style fig 9.7, p157

The title has been taken from the caption used in Rita Simon's publication.

The date has been taken from wording written on the recto.

September 1963

1 artwork Gouache on paper. 36.1 x 58.8 cm