Portrait for NHS Heroes

Tom Croft’s Portraits for NHS Heroes emerged as a moving artistic opportunity to show appreciation for the commitment and professionalism of healthcare professionals. As the UK entered lockdown in early April 2020, Croft, a British portrait painter, posted an offer on Instagram that he would paint a free portrait of the first National Health Service (NHS) worker to respond to the social media post. This spontaneous gesture quickly evolved into a collective project initiated by Croft and later published into a book in November 2020, involving hundreds of professional artists and NHS workers, capturing an important moment of national crisis through traditional portraiture. These medical individuals are often portrayed with dignity and care in vibrant and acrylic colour. Croft’s own portrait of Harriet Durkin, a nurse at Manchester Royal Infirmary, is painted in oil. The close-up composition places viewers in the position of intimacy, and the atmospheric lighting allows the portrait to be both realistic and emotionally charged.

Historically, portraiture in Western art tradition has been reserved for figures of wealth and power, like kings, aristocrats, and patrons. The project reclaims the medium for front-line healthcare workers, affirming their essential role in society and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Eventually, a virtual exhibition was launched in May 2020 through The Net Gallery, allowing audiences to explore the portraits in a 3D walkthrough. Later, the project was hosted on Google Arts & Culture, making the collection of over 700 portraits globally accessible. The alternative but innovative display format during the pandemic demonstrates a shift in how art is shared and experienced, particularly in the age of social distancing and digital communication. Such an approach accommodates pandemic restrictions but also simultaneously democratizes access to art—it transforms the private acts of commission of portraiture into public forms of commemoration.