Art in the National Health Service : a report / by the DHSS.

  • Great Britain. Department of Health and Social Security
Date:
[1984?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Art in the National Health Service : a report / by the DHSS. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    2. Schemes for providing art in Health Buildings The idea of this section is to outline the various schemes which exist to provide art in health buildings and to give some examples of hospitals etc which use them. The various kinds of scheme may be classified as follows: 1. Loan schemes (artworks in a collection may be ee for varying lengths of time, subject to certain conditions. 2. Exhibitions (touring exhibitions may be acquired for display in a public area, such as a waiting room). 3. Purchase schemes (monies may be available towards the purchase of paint- ings, prints or drawings). 4. Commission schemes (grants may be available towards the cost of commis- sioning an artist to produce a specific piece of work). 5. Artist-in-residence schemes (grants may be available towards an artist’s sal- ary so that he or she may work for a period in a public building). 6. Art(s) teams - small teams of young artists may be engaged to carry out specific kinds of work in health settings. 7. Others - Monies for ‘workshop’ sessions, one-offs, etc. More than one of these options may be funded or administered by a single source (eg the Arts Council’s Art for Public Places scheme covers purchases, commis- sions and artist-in-residences and is jointly administered with the RAAs). Also, a given health setting may run more than one of the schemes, perhaps even all!. LOAN SCHEMES A number of national, regional and local schemes exist to lend original prints, paintings or entire exhibitions for display in health buildings. Paintings in Hospitals Nuffield Lodge, Regents Park, London NW1 4RS. Tel: 01-722-8871. This scheme was started in 1959 by Sheridan Russell, then Head Almoner at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, London. Russell replaced the reproduc- tions on the walls of this hospital with original paintings by contemporary artists, often borrowed from friends. The success of the scheme led to an approach to the Nuffield Foundation for a grant to purchase paintings to hang in other hospitals. An advisory committee was set up and members of the committee now take turns to make purchases. From 1960 to 1978 grants from the Nuffield Foundation enabled the purchase of more than 800 paintings, which were distributed between some 50 London hospi- tals. Hospitals in over 20 towns and cities throughout Britain now also take advan- tage of the scheme. Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge and Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup both have large collections.