Quentin's Therapeutic Art

The Nightingale Project was set up to use art to brighten the lives of hospital patients and to help in their recovery. Good designers should already know that cheerful colours and bright surroundings have therapeutic value. The Nightingale Project goes a step further by arranging temporary art exhibitions, buying paintings for permanent display and arranging for musicians to play to patients on the wards. It invited Quentin Blake to create works to liven up Kershaw Ward for elderly patients in South Kensington and Chelsea Mental Health Centre. The result, as you might expect, is humorous illustrations depicting grannies swinging from trees, and so on. The exhibition Quentin Blake: Sixty New Drawings is on display in the reception area of the South Kensington and Chelsea Mental Health Centre until 31 January 2007.