Tag: iconography

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

The picture above was drawn in 1944, when the artist was interned in Tamuang camp, Thailand. This drawing, along with two others by the same artist, came to the Wellcome Library as part of a small collection of papers belonging… Continue reading

On this day one hundred years ago, Florence Nightingale died. As such, we have chosen to mark the day by considering the collections held in the Wellcome Library pertaining to a woman who is still one of the most recognisable… 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

On this day in 1890 Vincent Van Gogh committed suicide using a gun he had previously brandished at the doctor treating his increasingly difficult mental state – Paul Ferdinand Gachet. Gachet had encouraged Van Gogh to create an etching and… 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