Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund Scotland, Caring for the Collection is a project that will focus on Art in Healthcare’s vast art collection, enabling us to undertake a programme of maintenance and conservation of artworks currently in our art store.
We are delighted to have the support to recruit two technical roles, who will be dedicated to working with collection artworks and improving how they are stored safely. In November, we appointed Giulia Gentili, our Technician, who brings several years of experience working with a wide range of artists and organisations as an art technician, fabricator and artist.
Followed by the recruitment of our Collection Technician Apprentice, Mina Brennan, who will work closely alongside Giulia. Together, they will review, maintain and restore artworks, with the aim of placing them in hospitals, care homes and community spaces across Scotland. In addition to gaining hands on experience working with the collection, Mina will gain a Museum and Galleries Technician Modern Apprenticeship [SCQF level 7] qualification.
As part of this project, and to celebrate Art in Healthcare’s 35th Anniversary, Mina has launched a blog exploring 35 works from the Art in Healthcare Collection and her findings from her apprenticeship.
Welcome to the third blog post from the Collection Technicians!
Image: ‘Hankies – Ceci n’est pas un mouchoir’, John Byrne, 1991.
This week I wanted to write about a John Byrne piece I found in the collection recently. I have been a fan of John Byrne’s work for a long time, so you can imagine I was quite excited to discover we had one of his pieces in the collection!
The title of this work translates to ‘This is Not a Handkerchief’. Giulia let me know this is a direct reference to a famous Rene Magritte work titled ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’ which translates to ‘This is not a Pipe’ also known as ‘Treachery of Images’. This painting from the 1920s was met with a lot of discussion and Magritte reasons with a confused audience with the quote, “The famous pipe! How people reproached me for it!” going on to say, “Could you stuff my pipe? No, it’s just a representation. If I had written on my picture “this is a pipe,” I’d have been lying!”.
Acknowledging this reference and then viewing Byrne’s collage piece is illuminating. It did have me questioning what he was trying to tell us. In Rene Magritte’s painting he’s justified in telling us ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’ as this statement is true, it’s a painting not a physical pipe. John Byrne on the other hand has used actual handkerchiefs, not a representation of them. So, in fact he is lying to us, and I wonder if that is a commentary in itself.
Above the handkerchiefs is some writing in pencil which reads, “In darkest Perthshire, the sun goes down and the stars light up the sky”.
What do you think the link might be here? Are these the handkerchiefs John Byrne took on a trip with him to Perthshire?
This reference to Rene Magritte is something that often appears in Byrne’s work. One of his paintings being titled ‘Ceci n’est pas un Autoportrait’ which was part of the exhibition titled ‘Ceci n’est pas un Retrospective’. Does telling us a self-portrait isn’t a self-portrait make that true?
It is up to the artist to decide what their work depicts but does the audience have to believe them? Maybe this is what Byrne is trying to get us to think about?
Caring for the Collection is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund Scotland.
Thanks to National Lottery players, we will be able to dedicate time to improve the condition of our artworks currently in our store, so that they will be able to be displayed in health and social care settings across Scotland.
Museum & Galleries Technician Modern Apprenticeship is supported by Museums Galleries Scotland provider of the apprenticeship, mentor and SCQF level 7
11 February 2026 by
Amy Miles