Author: William Schupbach

On 25 October 1760, the British King George II died and his 22-year old grandson George William Frederick, previously Prince of Wales, became “His most Sacred Majesty George the IIId, King of Great Britain &c.” (above). Looking back from today’s… Continue reading

… the National Gallery’s spacious display of the Wellcome Library’s four paintings by Frederick Cayley Robinson, Acts of mercy. The exhibition is open free of charge at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square until Sunday 17 October (open every day… Continue reading

R.I.P. Norman Wisdom British slapstick virtuoso and cult hero in Albania. Seen above in a poster advertising the French version of A stitch in time (1963), in which he stars as the comic gadfly and victim of an overbearing medical… Continue reading

While walking through the Wellcome Library stacks to view a huge painting of Galileo, a scholarly visitor from Italy accompanied by a staff member happened to pass a shelf of miscellaneous items, among which was a bronze statuette (left, Wellcome… Continue reading

In any historical library, there is a continuous conversation between, on the one hand, the subjects discussed within the library’s holdings, and, on the other hand, the forms (vocabularies, media, genres, materials) in which those subjects are thought about, discussed,… Continue reading

“A really successful poster actually tells people what to do”. That’s the opening message from Dr Laragh Gollogly of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the BBC’s new audio-slideshow on public health posters. The posters shown are some of those… Continue reading

The online journal Museum practice often publishes useful case-studies for curators on such subjects as exhibitions, lighting, conservation, and cultural politics, but it was a surprise to read in an article from 15 July 2010 that “the Henry Wellcome collection… Continue reading

A group of thirty visitors from The Twentieth Century Society visited the Wellcome Library today to see the subterranean murals painted by Stewart Helm in 1992. The six bays of paintings were painted in a room which was then the… Continue reading

There is a new audio slideshow on the BBC website about the Wellcome Library’s paintings Acts of mercy by Frederick Cayley Robinson. The presentation, by Paul Kerley, marks the opening of the new exhibition at the National Gallery, in which… Continue reading

“Mental: a history of the madhouse” was a 60-minute television documentaryin the BBC Four/Open University “Out of Mind” Season, broadcast in the UK in May 2010. [1] It told the story of the closure of Britain’s mental asylums. To quote… Continue reading