Finding Family at the Foundling Museum

Family is where you find it, as they say. It is a broad statement in the face of which the Church’s social teachings have to hold their own against a panoply of options that vie both for attention and recognition in a confusing world. Thomas Coram’s Foundling Hospital, right in the heart of London, stands apart from the maelstrom, being founded long before anyone thought of the present kaleidoscope and for the sole purpose of “the education and maintenance of exposed and deserted young children”. Orphans, then, in the old-fashioned sense. 

“Hospital” in this case had more to do with hospitality than with medical care – like the medieval pilgrim hospices – although when it was founded in 1739 there was plenty of that needed as well, given a soaring infant mortality rate driven to a large extent by smallpox, consumption and dysentery. With Bedlam, Christ’s Hospital, the Charterhouse School and so many other city-centre establishments it later moved to the fresh air of the countryside; its work now continues under the aegis of The Thomas Coram Foundation for Children. 

Medicine costs money, of course, and some of the leading artists of the day pitched in to help. In 1749 Handel rehashed the Hallelujah Chorus in his “Foundling Hospital Anthem” and became a governor shortly afterwards, running a charity performance of “Messiah” every year. Meanwhile a succession of famous painters gave works of art for the Hospital’s walls, making it England’s first public gallery; although the Protestant governors rejected Andrea Casali’s Adoration of the Magi as too papistical. Beggars can be choosers after all.  

Art remains central to the museum that now stands on part of the Foundling Hospital’s former site, and the latest exhibition to showcase its priorities “questions the idea of family through art from the seventeenth century to the present day”. The curators invite visitors to “uncover and and explore new perspectives on what family is and can be” and throw down a robust gauntlet: “if you think you know what family means, think again.” Significantly, the show also includes contributions from the museum’s outreach programme for young people newly out of care. 

Down in the cellars, the exhibition punches well above its weight. Broadly speaking it asks four questions about what family is: “Is it Blood? Is it Connection? Is it Bond? Is it Love?” It seeks to answer them with historic paintings related to the Foundling Hospital, but also through freestyle poetry. While it’s hard to identify with the sentiment of some of them, it’s nevertheless hugely impressive that this is the first show here to be put on jointly by the Foundling Museum and graduates of their “award-winning, paid training programme for care-experienced young adults”.

Gainsborough’s daughters Mary and Margaret open the exhibition, on loan from the National Gallery; it is all the more poignant for the fact that Mary suffered from poor mental health, and after their parents’ death Margaret became her main caregiver until her own demise. Hogarth is represented by his painting of the Graham children, also from the National Gallery. He was a governor of the Foundling Hospital in its earliest days, and he and his wife fostered several children placed in its care. 

At the more modern end, Caroline Walker’s Night Change evokes the daily life of motherhood in her portrait of her sister-in-law changing a nappy; Louise Allen’s autobiographical Louise and William, too scared to move is hauntingly arresting. The space is dominated by Sikela Owen’s huge and slightly abstract portrait of her family, all of whom appear to be smiling but through blurred features, which is somewhat unsettling. Meanwhile Tamsin van Essen’s Entangled Roots is as playful as it is challenging. 

Inevitably a modern filter prevails. In this exhibition families can be anything, and include parent figures who are gay and straight, cis and trans. Naturally this is a point on which the Church finds itself at odds with the prevailing mood. The founders of the Hospital would have felt differently; back then Anglican social teaching was far removed from where it has landed today: a child needed a mother and a father, and if it had access to neither then it fell to others to step in and plug the gap as best as possible. It was in many ways a simpler world. 

Intergenerational families have existed for ever, of course. Particularly lovely is Adolf Tideman’s Granny’s Darling, in which an adoring grandmother dandles her grandson on her knee – he has snatched her spectacles and is trying to read a book. The curators take the opportunity to remind viewers that “living together in extended or multigenerational family structures and sharing daily life can help develop strong familial bonds.” It must be said, however, that the same is undoubtedly true of the religious orders, none of whom feature.

Nevertheless, this little offering asks a number of pertinent questions, which the curators sum up neatly in the opening blurb: “Highlighting the complex nature of human relationships, the works of art navigate the delicate balance between love and loss, intimacy and separation, care and neglect, joy and pain, stigma and respect, identity and belonging, conflict and resolution.” It does just what it says on the tin, and all these sentiments are expressed in different ways by the famous and no-so-famous artists on show. 

Catholics agree, certainly, that the care of children (and in particular vulnerable children) is in and of itself a good and worthy thing. In the same breath it would be unrealistic not to name and acknowlege what the late Pope Benedict called the “scourge” of their sexual abuse. The Church should strive to outdo society in its love for the young, and yet has failed on far too many occasions. None of that can be undone; all we can do now is repent and commit ourselves to doing better – infinitely better – in the future.  

That said, nor can it be denied that down the centuries hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of children have been cared for by Church institutions and gone on to live happy and fruitful lives. They found their families in the convents, monasteries and schools who raised and taught them, and were glad of the care. 

“One word,” say the curators, “with many meanings: ‘family’ lies at the heart of all our lives and is considered one of the most important units of society.” We know the latter to be true, and while not all the conclusions they draw sit comfortably with the teachings of the Church, nevertheless they surely demand our engagement and attention. 

Finding Family is at the Foundling Museum until 27 August.

Photo: Sikelela Owen.

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