Our Director Sophie Leighton on Collections Guardianship
This blog post follows a talk Sophie gave recently to the South & East London Museums Group, who meet regularly to talk about collections and collections management practice.
Can art be owned?
This title is deliberately provocative: of course art can be owned. Perhaps a more specific question is: who owns it and in what ways do they lay claim to it? And in the case of Bethlem Gallery, who owns this collection?
Bethlem Gallery established a collection of artwork in 2021-23, funded by the Peter Sowerby Foundation. The role of the collection is to be a working collection, out on display across hospital and community spaces. We are now, thanks to our AIM (Association of Independent Museums) fundamentals grant, putting resource into documenting it more fully, training colleagues in collections management, and photographing artworks: please watch this space. Bethlem Gallery’s collection is an interesting and rare example of a collection being developed in recent times, navigating issues and practices relating to collections best practice but also mental health best practice.
The Gallery’s first Collection Curator, Amisha Karia, had set up an advisory board to develop the collection in a very coproduced and ethical way. The board included artists, a clinician, and museum sector experts; many with lived experience of mental health services. As an advisory board we talked through issues such as the care and display of works from an artist’s perspective; what they would need and expect from an institution taking care of their work. We agreed that on acquiring work, we would collect information about whether there was anywhere the artist didn’t want their work displayed, for example.
Zoom forward to 2026, and the collection contains 150 works to date, by about 40 artists. We know many of these artists personally: they have all had exhibitions in the course of Bethlem Gallery’s 29-year history. We know the artworks too. The gallery team have supported many of the works into being, working closely with the artist – and often their networks – throughout the process, often spanning years. This means that many of the works in the collection are not just a numbered artwork: they represent a person, a process – and a relationship – very directly.
It is perhaps because of this relationship with the artist and artwork that care comes first, and ownership second for the Bethlem Gallery Art Collection. We think of ourselves very genuinely as guardians of the artwork and our work and role is to honour the artist and the artwork, as well as the collection of the gallery more widely.
We might legally own works in our collection, but our responsibility is to the artist and collection (collective of artists and artworks) first. We have made a commitment to let artists know if their work from our collection is going on loan or display, for example: they have told us that it is disconcerting not to know in advance. Where possible we also want to open up opportunities for the artists who want to have input into the interpretation of their work – and a paid opportunity to contribute to the public programme of the loaning institution – to be part of the life of their artwork within a collection.
These are our intentions, perhaps only possible to resource with a small collection. We realise it’s quite a different approach to collections stewardship. It is borne from an institutional emphasis on meeting artists needs and decisions in the best way that we can – and it’s an interesting blueprint.
Written by Sophie Leighton, Bethlem Gallery Director
If you would like to work with the Bethlem Gallery Art Collection, we are currently recruiting for a Collections Curator – deadline for applications is 9am Monday 12 October 2026.
We would like to thank the Peter Sowerby Foundation, The Heritage Lottery Fund, AIM Museum Fundamentals funded by Pilgrim Trust and The Julia Rausing Trust, and Arts Council England for making the collection and this work possible.
