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Modern Nature. Photographs from The Hyman Collection, Hepworth Wakefield, 2018-19.
The Hyman Collection is the private collection of Claire and James Hyman. It began in 1996 and consists of over three thousand artworks, from across the world, in all media.
In the last fifteen years the collection has focused on international photography from its origins to the present. In particular, the Hyman Collection seeks to support and promote British photography through acquisitions, commissions, loans and philanthropy. The collection includes artists working in photography as well as documentary photographers, and historic as well as contemporary photographs. It has an equal number of works by men and women and seeks, especially, to support the work of contemporary women photographers.
Highlights of the collection include:
- Anya Gallaccio's most famous work, Red on Green, (1992) a floor of ten thousand fragrant English tea roses laid on a bed of their stalks, which has been exhibited across the world.
- Sam Taylor-Johnson’s major four screen film installation, Pent Up.
- Spitting Image original life-size puppets of Margaret Thatcher and her government ministers.
- Bill Brandt: one of the most important collections in the world of vintage prints.
- Jo Spence: one of the most comprehensive collections in the world.
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Jo Spence. From Fairytales to Photo Therapy. Photographers from The Hyman Collection, Arnolfini, Bristol, 2020-21.
Timeline
2015
- The Hyman Collection launches www.britishphotography.org as an education resource based on British photographs in the private collection of Claire and James Hyman.
2018
- The Hyman Collection donates 125 photographs to the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, USA
2018-19
- The Hepworth Wakefield stages Modern Nature. Photographs from the Hyman Collection
2019
- The Hyman Collection donates 100 photographs to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, UK.
- The Hyman Collection announces the first of a series of commissions, Heather Agyepong’s new series Wish You Were Here (premiered Spring 2020).
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New Website, 2022.
2020
- The Hyman Foundation (Charity Commission No. 1190955) is set up to support photography in Britain.
- Claire and James Hyman organise, stage and donate all works to fundraisers for the NHS-Covid-19 Appeal and The Trussell Trust.
2020-21
- The Arnolfini in Bristol stages two exhibitions of works from the collection:
- Jo Spence. From Fairy Tales to Photo Therapy. Photographs from the Hyman Collection.
- A Picture of Health. Women Photographers from the Hyman Collection.
2021
- Oxford Photo Festival stages A Different Mirror. Women Photographers from the Hyman Collection
2022
- The Hyman Collection launches its new website with greatly increased content, www.hymancollection.org
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Dr Claire Hyman
Claire is an Oral Surgeon, qualifying as a Specialist in 2000.
From 2004-2020 Claire worked as an Oral Surgeon for the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. Most recently this included redeployment to ITU to help care for patients with Covid-19. Since 2021 she has combined working as a Specialist Oral Surgeon for Whittington Health NHS Trust with teaching. At Peninsula University she is Module Lead for MSc students in Oral Surgery and Undergraduate Clinical Supervisor, and at King's College London she is Clinical Lecturer in Oral Surgery. She is a Trustee of The Hyman Foundation.
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Dr James Hyman
James is an art historian and art dealer.
James received his PhD from the Courtauld Institute (University of London) and is a leading authority on twentieth century British art, especially the painters of the ”School of London”. His doctorate was published as The Battle for Realism. Figurative Art in Britain during the Cold War (Yale University Press, 2001). He is a writer, lecturer and curator and the Director of James Hyman Gallery. He is a trustee of the Robin and Inge Hyman Charitable Trust, The Hyman Foundation and the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation.
