The Peter Sowerby Art Collection
The Peter Sowerby Art Collection is a collection of artworks by artists with lived experience of mental health services and is managed, interpreted, cared for and actively developed by Bethlem Gallery.
Works will be displayed across the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM) and in the local community through a loans programme. We are currently in the process of developing the collection.
The formation of the new collection is generously supported by the Peter Sowerby Foundation.
Thanks to funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Bethlem Gallery has recruited a Collection Advisory Board to steer and influence the development of the collection. Please read on to find out who is on the board.
Daniel Regan is a visual artist specialising in the exploration of complex and difficult emotional experiences, focusing on the transformational impact of arts on mental health, building on his own lived experiences. Over the last 20 years his own works have brokered dialogues around taboo topics such as mental health, grief, self injury, suicide and racism.
As a part of his creative practice he shoots commissions, produces and delivers socially engaged projects and provides consultancy on Creative Health work. Daniel regularly exhibits, speaks at and teaches across fine art, educational and clinical institutions in the UK and worldwide.
Keith Clapson is a practising ceramic artist and graduated from the CityLit Ceramics Diploma in 2023. His philosophy is one of maximalism: a ‘more is more’ way of working. This has been forged through experimentation with unique glazes and textures that draw in or repel, pigments created through the interplay of metals and heat, and a prolific output.
He volunteers as a mentor to patients at The Bethlem Hospital Anxiety Disorders Residential Unit (ADRU), where he was an inpatient for four months in 2017, teaches ceramics to patients in the Occupational Therapy department, and volunteers elsewhere including at Stonewall.
Photo credit: Ben McDade.
Chantal Condron is a curator, teacher and writer of 30 years’ experience in the arts sector, including the Government Art Collection (GAC), Tate and Visiting Arts. She teaches across London including Art History at City Lit and its accredited Ceramics Diploma course; the WEA; and to young adults.
As curator at the GAC, she led engagement programmes at the University of Hull, Whitechapel Gallery, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery; the 2019 London Borough of Culture in Waltham Forest; and UK embassies abroad. Author of the first monograph on Danish artist Peter Hedegaard, Chantal continues to write for exhibitions and artists.
Chantal has written a blog post with her reflections about the first six months of the Advisory Board’s meetings. You can read this here in our Journal section.
Amisha Karia works at Bethlem Gallery as a Collection Curator and is responsible for establishing the gallery’s collection. Amisha is a Doctoral Researcher and Curator with interests in ‘use-led’ collections, workforce development, health and wellbeing. She is also a Trustee of Collections Trust and the Beecroft Bequest.
Her previous roles include: Fundraising & Partnerships Manager at Bethlem Gallery & Museum of Mind; Head of Collection & Programmes at Paintings in Hospitals; Exhibitions & Collections Manager at the University of Hertfordshire.
Shaz Hussain is a Collection Registrar at Tate where she manages loans out to both UK and international museums and galleries. She is particularly focussed on working with smaller organisations to enable them to borrow from Tate’s collection and provide better access to art.
Previous to this Shaz was the Archive Collections Officer at Burberry where she advocated for the brand’s heritage and collections to empower storytelling. She has also worked with collections at the Science Museum, Royal Air Force Museum and Norfolk Museums Service.
Shaz is committed to equity and inclusion; she has served as an executive committee member for Museum Detox and has worked with museums and galleries around the world consulting on their exhibition research and facilitating anti-racism workshops.
Khaldoon Ahmed is a Londoner of Pakistani descent who works as a psychiatrist and makes films. His most recent film “John Meyer Ward” tells the multiple stories of a former Victorian asylum building that was demolished. He was a Trustee of the arts and health charity Mental Fight Club which ran the Dragon Cafe and ReCreate Psychiatry project.
He has long been engaged in research and teaching of illness and culture. He studied a masters in medical anthropology at UCL, where he also trained in medicine. More recently, Khaldoon has taken up writing and publishing creative non-fiction.
Sonia Solicari is Director of Museum of the Home where she recently oversaw a major redevelopment project to double public space and has introduced a vision which expands the Museum’s definition of home – centring issues-based collecting and creative programming.
Previous roles include Head of Guildhall Art Gallery & London’s Roman Amphitheatre; and Curator of Ceramics at the V&A.
Sonia is co-director of the Centre for Studies of Home, a partnership with Queen Mary, University of London and an international hub for research on the home. She is a trustee of Bethlem Gallery.
Sophie Leighton is the Director of Bethlem Gallery and has responsibility for overseeing the gallery’s current and future activity, strategies and programmes.
A curator by training, her previous roles include working at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Freud Museum. She is a Clore Fellow 2017/18, Museums Association associate, PhD student, and fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Frequently Asked Questions
We are currently in the process of establishing the collection, by working with the advisory board to decide what pieces will be in the collection and how we will care for and interpret it. We hope the Collection will launch at the end of 2024.
Once the Collection is established, you will be able to search a database and view works on this webpage. Works will also be displayed at Bethlem Gallery, Bethlem Royal Hospital and other locations throughout the local community as part of a loans programme.
Works can be borrowed by wards and spaces across South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM), and by community venues across the boroughs of Bromley, Croydon, Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham.
We are currently applying for funding to subsidise costs of loaning works but we may need to ask for a fee to cover the costs of transport and installation. This will depend on the work and your venue, please ask for more information.
We have a Collections Development policy which has been written in collaboration with the collection advisory board, and this governs our acquisitions for the collection.
We are currently only working with our existing community of artists.
We hope that the collection will eventually have around 200 works.
The Peter Sowerby Foundation have generously funded the development of this collection. You can learn more about their work and about Peter Sowerby himself on their website.
