Camden New Journal - Letters: Save hospital paintings

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Camden New Journal - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 5 July 2007

A public appeal could save hospital paintings

• THE four Frederick Cayley Robinson Acts of Mercy paintings (Save hospital masterpieces, June 28) were gifted to Middlesex Hospital.
Whenever I was admitted as a patient, or as an outpatient, the sight of these lovely works meant a lot to me.
My visitors and senior medical staff and nurses prized them equally.
We must try not to blame the NHS trustees for failing to understand these works of art, or for going overboard with quite a lot of tedious contemporary commissions.
Except for the new Euston Road atrium stone.
Most agreeable?
What ideally should be done in order that all of us might be happy with our NHS trustees?
Bearing in mind the excellent connections the trustees and the Tate have with art benefactors, the solution is this: an appeal should be made for someone who cares for our NHS and art to finance a special purchase of the panels, reframe them, and hang them in the ideal location – our new Euston Road atrium.
And if the public were asked to make a donation, I hope I might be the first to do so.
A plaque beneath the panels can praise the original benefactor, Sir Edmund Davis, their 21st-century saviour, and the foresight of our NHS trustees.
And, daily, thousands of visitors to the tower will be enchanted by the tradition of the historical period 1910-2006.
JACK BUDDEN
Fitzroy Square
W1

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Tuesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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