The Healing Presence of Art: A History of Western Art in Hospitals

Free with Museum admission, booking required. To book your place please call +44 (0)20 7841 3600 or email enquiries@foundlingmuseum.org.uk 

Following on from our recent exhibition, Quentin Blake – As large as life, which featured recent work by Quentin Blake created for hospitals in the UK and France, distinguished art historian Richard Cork comes to the Foundling Museum to discuss his recent publication The Healing Presence of Art: A History of Western Art in Hospitals.

Between birth and death, many of life's most critical moments occur in hospital, and deserve to take place in surroundings that match their significance. In this spirit, from the early Renaissance through to the modern period, artists have made immensely powerful work in hospitals across the western world, enhancing the environments where patients and staff strive towards better health.

Fascinated by the extraordinary richness of art produced in hospitals, Cork will explore work by many of the great masters - Rogier van der Weyden, El Greco, William Hogarth, Jacques-Louis David, Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Fernand Leger, Marc Chagall and Naum Gabo. Cork will reveals art's ability to humanize our hospitals, alleviate their clinical bleakness and leave a profound, lasting impression on patients, staff and visitors.

Richard Cork is an award-winning art critic, historian, broadcaster, exhibition curator, and former Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge University and Senior Fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.

The book, The Healing Presence of Art: A History of Western Art in Hospitals by Richard Cork can be purchased here.