Background and existing cataloguing

This section describes the various materials acquired by Wellcome Collection relating to Edward Adamson, 'The Adamson Collection' and The Adamson Trust. Each grouping describes the acquistion history as of February 2025 and cataloguing status as of May 2023.

'The Adamson Collection'

Acquistion history

The majority of the works were first viewed by Wellcome Collection in July 2010 in situ at Lambeth Hospital where photographs and notes of the condition and extent of the artworks was taken. The Adamson Trust owned the objects as “abandoned works” and wished to donate the collection and wind the Adamson Trust up.

The artworks are brought onsite to 183 Euston Road in 2012 as a temporary storage measure remaining the property of the Adamson Trust and known as ‘The Adamson Collection’.

The full extent brought onsite included approx. 287 framed paintings, 167 folders containing approx. 4000 drawings, 3 named framed paintings, and a sample number of stone sculptures intended to fit inside a single Solander box.

In 2015, a contract of ownership was created so Wellcome Collection legally owned the works transferred onsite in 2012 from Lambeth Hospital as well as collections still remaining at Brixton Road and St. Thomas’ Hospital, but excluded any ‘painted pebbles, flints, sculptures and similar items…the painting “Ball of Twine” by William Kurelek, works on long term loan to the American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore; and works in any medium by Rolanada Polonska’.

In 2016, approx. 37/38 works were collected from St Thomas's Hospital and in 2017, 37 works from Brixton Road as part of the revised 2015 contract. Both contained some works by Rolanda Polonsky.

Cataloguing history

Sierra Cataloguing

Upon receiving the initial transfer in 2012, each framed work was sequentially numbered with a room prefix to maintain the arrangement of works as found onsite. Framed works ‘not in Adamson frames’ would all be deframed by Wellcome with the transfer of this reference number to the paper folder it was now housed in; this was completed in 2013.

In addition, a list was received from the donor of the foldered works arranged by patient name including a folder number, date of creation, an inventory title, the medium, and rough dimensions of the work.

In 2013-2014, select items were then reframed to be exhibited externally. Another exhibition at the Maudsley Hospital Long Gallery consisted of photographs made of the artworks and framed, both by Wellcome Collection; the digital images produced are part of the L-series. The documentation indicates they may have reused the frames that the works were deframed from for the photographic surrogates used in the Maudsley exhibition.

By June 2014, only 103 items remained framed, and there was an intention to rearrange the collection so all works by the same artists could be stored together, both foldered and items that had been deframed during 2013.

As these works were considered part of the iconographic collections, cataloguing began in Sierra in 2016 with 2094 iconographic numbers given between 2016-2019. A bibliographic record was created for each work, and an item record for each support. Material considered uncatalogued was represented by a single bibliographic record, b18206384, and iconographic number, 820638i, but each folder or object was given an item record, 86 in total.

Metadata recorded typically included box number, reference number, date and place of creation, Adamson and/or patient name as creator, interpretative title including interpretation of both subject and emotions expressed by patients, number of works, type of work and medium, dimensions of work, source of title, inscription and source of inscription, and subject and genre headings.

Physical arrangement was largely kept in inventory number order as when received by the donor, with individual artworks by the same creator housed individually in a bigger folder. The overarching folders were then largely stored in alphabetical sequence to help retrievals. Each work was labelled on the work and folder with the iconographic number where unique.

As the number of artworks by each creator varies, some series are easily contained in one folder, others have been numbered on the outer folder using a mixture of roman and Arabic numerals, and some folders contain a range of creators where they only produced 1 or 2 works. Some have been removed from their overarching folder in the draw because there are too many to be safely stored together.

Items found to be created by a specific artist in the sequence following deframing began to be added to the physical sequence c.2014 but aren’t catalogued.

Calm cataloguing

In 2019, it was decided these artworks were better placed within Adamson’s archive as they were created in Adamson’s studios and would be better served by the surrounding context of the PP/ADA archive. The lack of structured numbering also made it difficult to retrieve, and recent changes to the catalogue API made it more difficult to search in its current form.

Work began in migrating the existing Sierra catalogue data into CALM with an archival structure, keeping the series arrangement by patient name and using the existing unique iconographic number for each work in the public ref i.e. 2846757i became PP/ADA/C/8/1/2846757i. The unique iconographic reference number was also kept as a previous number.

Items not yet catalogued were intended to be continued in the same style in CALM. However, questions over whether it was ethical to name the artists, suggested refinements to visual cataloguing guidelines and system limitations, stalled cataloguing in CALM until they were addressed.

Inventory practice

Inventory of the Visual and Material Culture collections led to additional uncatalogued material being identified outside of the main drawer store, mainly items still legally owned by the Adamson Trust and some small sculptural works.

PP/ADA and SA/ADC archive collections

The first of the archive material related to Adamson was collected in 2002 (Acc 1055) including some art therapy lecture notes, photos and grey literature related to his work donated via his partner John Timlin. This was assigned the reference PP/ADA and assumed part of the archive & manuscript collection. This was followed up by a direct donation from John Timlin in 2010 including further photographs but also correspondence, notebooks and drawings by both Adamson and his patients.

In 2012, during the transfer of the patient artworks, paperwork related to the Adamson Trust was transferred separately as an archive collection (Acc 1911 and 1922) and given the reference number SA/ADC. This included grey literature, newspaper cuttings, and photographs of exhibitions created by the Trust and as on display in hospital galleries from the 1960s onwards. Accruals to this collection included trustee administrative papers in 2013 (Acc 1969) and artworks by Liberty Rothschild acquired via trustees Miriam Rothschild and Shelia Donaldson Walters in 2018 (Acc 2459).

In 2013, items part of an accrual to SA/ADC (Acc 1969) were transferred to the PP/ADA collection as they belonged with the existing drawings in PP/ADA; this included 6 sketchbooks and a group of loose sketches 1954-1958 containing drawings of patients at Netherne Hospital.

In the same year items within the PP/ADA collection (Acc 1764) were transferred to the SA/ADC collection as they were letters and leaflets pertaining to the Trust after Adamson’s death.

In 2016 a further accrual (Acc 2349) was assigned both the PP/ADA and SA/ADC references upon acquisition so the material could be split accordingly.

Information about the 2012 transfer including subsequent contract changes, collections care and cataloguing work, has been saved within the SA/AFC collections file, despite not being catalogued under SA/AFC. Information about the 2016 and 2017 transfers, and a further prospective accrual, have been saved within the PP/ADA collections file.

Cataloguing history

All accessions had been catalogued prior to 2023, apart from 2349, 2459, 2776 and digital material in 1911.

Handling Collection

A ‘handling collection’ was created between 2012 and 2015 and grouped together under the reference number 3025646i; it consists of 13 colour photographs taken of items in the collection proper mounted on foam board.

Cataloguing history

It was catalogued in 2015.

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