Tuesday, 23 January 2018

The Foundling Museum

Staying, as I am, in the middle of London’s so called Museum Mile, I aim to write a post on each of the 13 large and small museums on this map. I plan to walk to each of them, (hopefully mitigating my traditional English breakfast along the way) and, more importantly, reflecting on the ideas raised in my course at Goldsmiths. As I immerse myself further into study, no doubt academic readings will increasingly influence the posts. In the meantime, it’s an extraordinary opportunity to think about both the shared and the unique circumstances of each Museum, and what stands out as notable or transferable ideas.

The Foundling Museum is a great place to start, as the home of Britain’s first public art museum. The Museum is built on the site of the Foundling Hospital, a charity for abandoned children founded by Thomas Coram in 1739. The hospital is now known as Coram, and continues to provide for vulnerable children as it has for over 275 years.

The Museum tells the story of the Hospital, and today continues the long history of the organisation in bringing artists to the aid of children. The artist William Hogarth, known for the acerbic social commentary of his works, was an early supporter of the hospital. In 1740, Hogarth donated a portrait of the hospital founder, and encouraged fellow artists to also donate work. The room in the Foundling Museum pictured below, (rebuilt) is called the Picture Gallery, and was the first permanent exhibition space in the UK. 
The Picture Room, at the Foundling Museum.

Other high profile early supporters of the Hospital included  George Frideric Handel and who gave performances of his Messiah in the hospital Chapel, to attract support for the charity, and Charles Dickens, who was a nearby resident. These artists:

 “  ..combined support of the charity with creative self promotion.........Art, music and vulnerable children drew the wealthy to the Hospital, eager to parade their refinement and charity. They in turn enabled the artists to compete for commissions, and the Hospital to secure charitable donations” - (Foundling Museum wall texts.)

The Museum draws on this long history of philanthropy, and collaboration with artists in its current practice."Through a dynamic programme of exhibitions and events, we celebrate the ways in which artists and children have inspired each other for over 275 years." (Museum wall text)

High profile artists such as Cornelia Parker, Yinka Shonibare, Grayson Perry, and David Shirley have undertaken projects with the Museum.

Many visitors and artists of the Museum are moved by the display of tokens- humble and heartbreaking identifiers left by parents of abandoned children, to enable them to be identified if the child was reclaimed by its parents. Swatches of babies clothes were cut in half, one half left with the token, and one kept by the mother. Tokens were often personalised with messages of love, hope, loss or desperation. Follow the link above to read more about, and see some images of these poignant objects.

This deceptively simple work by David Shrigley is in the Museum collection, and responds to these objects.


David Shrigley, Untitled (This is a token) 2012


This Museum helps me wonder if we at TAFE have an  opportunity to contribute to a culture of philanthropy in the arts, by creating collaborations between charities and creatives that seek to benefit all parties? Does this strike a chord with anyone? 

Lastly, please indulge me if I post an iPad drawing of a textile and paper token; a textile heart with arms outstretched, with fragments of the identifying billet attached. An impossibly sad and strange object.

I am enjoying  the chance to find out about iPad drawing (despite the diabolical image compression of social media sites such as this blog.) Whilst I won't be giving up my native practice of photography just yet, there is a lot to be said for the combination of focussed and immersive thinking that drawing allows. Susan Sontag's observations of visitors photographing sites without looking at them are no less relevant in today's Museum than they were when she wrote On Photography. I couldn't help but be struck by this at the British Museum- but more on that later.


Cath Barcan, 'Token from the Foundling Museum' iPad drawing, 2018.







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