Rita Simon Collection

1944-1999

961 artworks, 4 boxes, 1 o/s folder

The Collection is arranged into two sections: Section A: Paper records and Section B: Patient artworks. Original file titles have been retained.

Material deposited by Rita Simon in 1997.

Rita Mary Simon was born in 1921. She was one of the leading figures in the profession of art therapy in the UK and internationally. She worked for the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, for medical consultants and for psychiatrists of different schools. In the 1950s and from 1969 to 1984, she lived in Northern Ireland and introduced art therapy to the social and psychiatric services. She was one of the founder members of NIGAT (the Northern Ireland Group for Art as Therapy) and was also a founder member of the British Association of Art Therapists (BAAT). In the 1960s she introduced art therapy at the Cheadle Royal Astell Day Hospital in Cheshire. From 1975 to 1983 she provided regular short residential courses in art therapy in Belfast where she also ran small art therapy groups such as a children's art group in a troubled suburb of Belfast. Between 1975 and 1995 she published two books and eighteen papers. She died on 4 May 2008.

Rita Simon: Symbolic Images in Art as Therapy (1997).

Rita Simon: The Symbolism of Style: Art as Therapy (1992)

This collection has been catalogued and is available to library members. Some items have access restrictions which are explained in the item-level catalogue records.