National Portrait Gallery
In February 2016, Delancey became the first ever sponsor for the National Portrait Gallery’s Schools Programme. The first public portrait gallery in the world, the National Portrait Gallery was founded in 1856 and now has the largest collection of its type, housing some 200,000 portraits, from the 16th Century to the present day.
The Gallery’s Schools Programme is a vibrant and important part of the gallery’s learning offer, using its permanent Collection and temporary exhibitions as catalysts for activities which support the National Curriculum at primary and secondary schools across London. The three year programme works across a range of subjects including history and citizenship as well as art and photography.
More recently, Delancey has extended its support of the Gallery and signed up to support the National Portrait Gallery’s Hospitals Programme which works with London’s four leading children’s hospitals – Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, Evelina London Children’s Hospital, The Royal London Hospital and Newham University Hospital - to deliver a three-year creative arts project to thousands of children and their families.
The new funding has enabling the Gallery to increase its commitment to providing access to the arts in London’s children’s hospitals. The only children’s hospital arts programme of its kind in the world, it provides an ongoing, high quality, bespoke educational creative arts project year-round at no cost to hospitals.
The Gallery’s programme includes eighty creative workshops a year, working with photographers, writers and artists, and the scale and quality of the books ensure they can be used in many different clinical settings. The project enables young people and their families to access the Gallery’s Collection and helps support health, wellbeing and happiness through participating in the books’ activities and workshops.
Last year the National Portrait Gallery gave 3000 young people in four of London’s children’s hospitals a specially commissioned activity book of portraits and illustrations inspired by their favourite writers such as Roald Dahl, J.K. Rowling, Douglas Adams and Malorie Blackman. The book called My Magical Journeys was launched at Evelina London Children’s Hospital with a workshop given by one of the featured writers, poet John Hegley, and the book’s illustrator Lizzy Stewart.
Dr Nicholas Cullinan, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London, comments:
“I am delighted that Delancey will ensure the continued support of these exciting projects that bring portraits from the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection directly to London’s schools and children’s hospitals and will inspire their own creative responses to them.”