Portraits for NHS Heroes
initiated by Tom Croft
Bloomsbury Caravel £25

COMMISSIONED portraits of working-class people are rare. So it is with great pleasure that I received Tom Croft’s book of portraits of NHS workers, painted free by volunteer artists to honour their selfless heroism during the Covid-19 pandemic.  
    
Men and women, young and old, Caucasians, Asians, Africans and Afro-Caribbeans return our gaze with smiling or worried expressions. Some look exhausted, some look anxious, some offer hope. Mostly dressed in their uniforms, only protected from the deadly virus by masks, visors and/or plastic aprons, they offer their expertise to heal others.
    
The images are accompanied by short texts explaining who the workers are and how they work to save lives during this plague year. Portrayed by Adrain Lloyd, Doctor Cole who originated from Sierra Leone and became a nurse before becoming a GP, now trains other GPs. Her joyful smile and glowing skin radiate positivity and hope.

The NHS’s multiculturalism and internationalism shine out. In Richard Twose’s portrait Mr Charles Nduka, a consultant plastic surgeon, engages our gaze with earnest sincerity mingled with sorrow, through his wide, oblong spectacles.

The blue scrubs, white mask and surgeon’s hat echo the colours of the NHS logo, and the empty space of the cream background above crush him metaphorically. Sadly many patients cannot be saved. This is one of the few paintings which reveals the brushwork and dares to simplify forms.
    
Most works are slavish copies of the photographs from which they are painted rather than perceptive interpretations into new entities. Unlike traditional portraiture, the workers were asked to send photographs of themselves from which the artists worked. Unfortunately this lack of personal interaction between subject and artist often results in a lack of the intellectual, emotional and psychological insights which a painter can achieve when painting from a living sitter.
    
Very few workers pose with the coy or self-regarding expressions of “selfies.” Most stare directly at us, wearing their uniforms, masks, scrubs or stethoscopes, as in the Renaissance tradition they are characterised by their clothes and tools of their trade. This is not the time or place for formal innovations.

Indeed, one of the most aesthetically powerful portraits is Laura Quinn Harris’s ultra-realist portrait of Liam Halliwell, a paramedic who has worked for the NHS “in various guises” for 22 years.

This small, 25 x 20 cm oil on board portrait painted with sensitivity in a highly realist manner has great presence. It meticulously renders the sheen on Halliwell’s water resistant jacket, the textures of the embroidered NHS ambulance service and NHS logo, and the slight roughness of a day’s growth on his upper lip and chin. The restrained gamut of blueish and greenish greys of his eyes, uniform and background are pierced by the contrasting pink and cream flesh tones of his oval head.

The paramedic’s unassuming but unflinchingly resolute gaze imparts confidence in his abilities to help the vulnerable. He epitomises the “heroism” of long-serving NHS workers who just get on with their job and would in no way see themselves as heroes.
    
The porters, cleaners, cooks, receptionists, administrators, lab technicians and others without whom the NHS could not function are missing, perhaps because many have been outsourced. Nevertheless workers ranging from surgeons to student nurses are represented.
    
The grateful and admiring responses by the workers portrayed convey the pleasure these portraits bring, and many will undoubtedly be proudly hung in their or their parents’ homes. Brought together in Croft’s book the paintings are tributes to the endurance of NHS workers and a poignant testament of the past year’s miseries.

Christine Lindey