Camdne New Journal - Letters: Hospital art in wrong place

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Camden New Journal - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 17 May 2007

Hospital art in wrong place

• IT seems as if the artist Frederick Cayley Robinson, whose moving memorial to the band on the Titanic, Outward Bound, has struck a similar iceberg with his murals for the Middlesex Hospital.
These poignant paintings have provided comfort for generations of patients and visitors and performed the true function of ‘art for hospitals’ as well as being rare masterpieces only now being recognised as such by the art world.
How dreadful, then, that UCLH has decided to abandon them for profits alone, without a care for those who made them such a genrous gift.
Their archives hold virtually no photographic record of these treasures and no real record of the gift itself – do they really own them?
I would suggest that we, as Londoners, are the real owners, and the pathetic excuses of the hospital committee that “no provision can be made for them”, is merely a ploy to sell them to the highest bidder.
It really sums up the utterly insensitive attitude of the NHS.
These paintings must be saved for further generations and not sold to overseas buyers, who, believe me, know full well, their genuine quality.
CHRIS PRICE
Marlborough Place, NW8

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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