Where does it come from?

Provenance is one of the most frequent subjects of questions sent to the Wellcome Library: where did the Library get a particular item from? Sometimes the names of previous owners are in the catalogue record, but in a field which is only visible behind the scenes, not in the public form of the Wellcome Library catalogue. More often however, the provenance of a given item is not in the computer catalogue at all but is buried somewhere within a huge archive of auction catalogues, dealer's catalogues, registers, catalogue cards, scrawled on the folders and slips of paper filed with the item, or implicit in the item's inclusion in a batch of documents all with the same provenance.

Sometimes however we strike lucky. The Wellcome Library has a set of "prints representing the most interesting sentimental and humorous scenes" in Laurence Sterne's novel Tristram Shandy, published in Dublin by William Allen (fl. 1787-ca. 1820).

A previous owner has written on the versos of the Wellcome Library prints the precious details of his acquisition:
"Ja[me]s Knight his picture bought it at Nath[anie]l Greacens Printer on the 10th day of July 1805 Monaghan". Click on the image below for a larger view.

A couple of surprising points: first, he calls the engraving "his picture", indicating indifference to the fact that it was an engraving, and secondly, that he bought it from the printing establishment of Nat Greacen in Monaghan town, presumably because Greacen was acting as an agent of William Allen's in the north of Ireland. Greacen's building in Monaghan later became well-known as a hotel and pub, but, as one of the favourite Protestant watering-holes in the town, it was badly damaged in the IRA bombing of 17 May 1974, after which it closed for business and reopened later as a bank.

So the Library catalogue could, if we can get the provenance to display properly, provide useful information for such subjects as the fame of Sterne's Dr Slop, the selling and buying of prints in Georgian Ireland, and the waves of movements of documents which underly those collections which happen to exist today.

Rita Simon 1921-2008

Rita Mary Simon died on 4 May 2008. Born in 1921, she was one of the leading figures in the profession of Art Therapy in the UK and internationally. Her entry into the profession in 1942 was due to the unconventional Adlerian psychoanalyst Joshua Bierer, who was trying to find new kinds of interaction between the analyst and the person being analysed, and thought that art-production might be a good linking activity. Finding she had a talent to realize the patients' unused skills and imagination, she was soon taking on a similar role for the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, for medical consultants and for psychiatrists of different schools. In the 1950s and again from 1969 to 1984, she lived in Northern Ireland and introduced art therapy as a constituent of the social and psychiatric services, was one of the founder members in 1986 of NIGAT (the Northern Ireland Group for Art as Therapy) and was also a founder member of the British Association of Art Therapists (BAAT).

On her return to England in the 1960s she introduced art therapy at the Cheadle Royal Astell Day Hospital, Cheshire. From 1975 to 1983 she provided regular short residential courses in art therapy through Queen's University Belfast and through evening classes at Belfast Metropolitan College. She ran small art-therapy groups such as a children's art group in a disturbed and violent suburb of Belfast. Between 1975 and 1995 she published two books and 18 papers. Her archive of paintings is preserved in the Wellcome Library, where it has its own webpage and catalogue record and other works are in NIGAT's archive.

Her life is now celebrated in an illustrated colour issue of NIGAT's newsletter. It includes photographs of Rita Simon, a biography of her by Eileen McCourt and Alice Graham, memories of her by friends and family, some of her own poems and paintings, and a vivid array of personalia.

Newsletter: In memory of Rita M. Simon, published by Northern Ireland Group for Art as Therapy (http://www.nigat.org/), November 2008, is available for GBP3.66 including postage from Ceri McKervill, NIGAT Treasurer, 1 Brocklamont Park, Old Galgorm Road, Ballymena, Co. Antrim., BT42 1AS (Email: c.j.mckervill@btinternet.com).