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Camden News - by RICHARD OSLEY
Published: 29 January 2009

FOUR historic hospital paintings by the British

Art operation: Hospital paintings stay on display

FOUR historic hospital paintings by the British symbolist Frederick Cayley-Robinson have been saved for public view after the New Journal revealed how they were in danger of being lost to private hands forever.
The huge murals, donated to the old Middlesex Hospital in Fitzrovia in 1920, were put up for sale at private auction following the sale of the building in 2006.
But following a public outcry, pressure from some of the most important figures in the art world, including The Tate’s Sir Nicholas Serota and the critic Brian Sewell, hospital bosses were forced into a U-turn. For many months, arguments were played out on the pages of the New Journal.
Two years on, the Wellcome Trust has bought the paintings for £235,000 and they will be on permanent display to the public, in two rotating pairs, in the health charity’s library in Euston Road. The “special purchase” has dwarfed the Wellcome Trust’s annual budget for art acquisitions.
Clare Matterson, the Wellcome Trust’s director for medicine, society and history, said: “These paintings are of huge local and historic importance.
“They were commissioned in Camden and they have been viewed by patients in the hospital since 1920. Our library is a public building and we will make sure they get plenty of public viewing.”
The paintings, called the Acts of Mercy, depict wartime nurses and orphans outside the hospital. They were donated to the hospital by arts patron Sir Edmund Davis.
Ms Matterson added: “The paintings are very obviously in pairs. The orphans are my favourite, but we haven’t decided which will be on display first.”
UCLH chairman Sir Peter Dixon said: “It is wonderful news that we have been able to find a suitable home for these important paintings.”

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