Charles Lutyens display reveals artist’s work in psychiatric hospitals

The exhibition will feature the work of artists who have revealed the hidden world of psychiatric hospitals in the late 20th century.

Charles Lutyens was an artist and art therapist in the 1970s and 1980s, which gave him access to psychiatric hospitals at a time when they were feared and stigmatized by many.

His work led him to create paintings that study characters often ignored or despised by the world.

The free exhibition opens on June 8 at the Bethlem Spiritual Museum in Beckenham, south-east London.

Born in 1933, Lutyens trained at a variety of institutions and created works such as ‘Angel of the Heavenly Host’ in St Paul’s Church, Bow Common, one of Britain’s largest single artist mosaics .

But the focus of A World Apart: The Work of Charles Lutyens is the work he created while working as an art therapist.

Art therapy, formally practiced since the mid-20th century, is a psychotherapy that uses art media as its primary means of expression and communication.

Lutyens, who worked as a therapist in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, closely observed the characters he met and described their daily lives within the institutions where he worked.

Colin Gale, the museum’s director, said Lutyens “infused his work with empathy for his subjects, eliciting and portraying his own emotions through careful depiction and visual metaphor.”

“As well as documenting aspects of daily life in institutions, Lutyens’ work also contains poignant records of human emotion and experience.”

The exhibition is based in the 1930s former administration building of Bethlem Royal Hospital, the world’s oldest psychiatric hospital, and will run until August 31st.