"seeing the painting helped me heal"

In March 2020, when the UK went into lockdown, looking for a way to positively respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, artist Tom Croft offered a free portrait to an NHS worker on his instagram feed and invited other portrait artists to do the same.  This simple but powerful initiative struck a chord: with portrait artists, as a way to say thank you; with NHS workers and their families, grateful for the commemoration of their work; and with the public, moved by the power of portraiture to capture a person and a time.

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I have painted portraits for four NHS heroes to date, all in oil, on canvas, painted from photographs due to the lockdown restrictions.  It has been both humbling and gratifying to connect with front-line workers in this way, at a time when we all felt so disconnected.  One of them, of Nancy Faulkner, is in the book, Portraits for NHS Heroes, and was featured in the Weekend Guardian.