art & medicine programs

Art With a Heart in Healthcare
Arts & Minds Lab (Johns Hopkins University)
Aspen Institute
Johns Hopkins University (new arts initiative)
Mayo Clinic (physicians)
Mayo Clinic Flower of Hope
Stanford University

art collections at hospitals

Contemporary art helps to create beautiful, "living" environments that also lead to art programming initiatives within hospitals.

New York-Presbyterian
New York Health + Hospitals
Mass General Brigham Martha’s Vineyard Hospital + Profile
University of Florida Health
Cedars-Sinai
Children’s Hospital Colorado

Cleveland Clinic — Cleveland Clinic App — Cleveland Clinic Exhibition Calendar — (PDF of collection)

Foundation for Hospital Art
How Hospital Art Collections Became Very Personal
Medical University of South Carolina

Sharon Louden’s work is both in the Cleveland Clinic collection and the collection of the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.

** In 2010, Sharon received a text from the daughter of a patient in the E.R. at the hospital who was looking at her work at that moment and said that it was making her father feel better, distracting from the pain he was feeling right then!

books

Transforming the Healthcare Experience Through the Arts
Artists Remaking Medicine: The practice of imagination and the power to create a better healthcare future
Creative Care: A Revolutionary Approach to Dementia and Elder Care
Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us

creative aging

• Article: “Is ‘Joyspan’ the Key to Aging Well?” (NY Times, July 2025)

FUNDING

National Endowment for the Arts
The Institute for Arts Integration and STEAM
Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University
Wellbeing through Art at Harvard
The Foundation for Art and Healing
CDC Foundation

HEALTH CARE/WELL-BEING

Humanizing the Workplace: What Does Art Have to Do with Business? (Video discussion between Adam Rosendahl, Ivy Ross, and Susan Magsamen, May 21, 2025)

• Article: “Art Classes Don’t Just Spark Creativity, They Boost Memory And Focus Too,” (Study Finds, September 2025)

• Article: “Art of Bouncing Forward,” (Psychology Today, September 2025)

• Article: “4 Reasons Why Looking at Art Is Good For You,” (Artsy, July 2025)

• Article: “Putting Art to Work,” (Psychology Today, July 2025)

• Article: “Collection Spotlight: Fine Art is Good Medicine at Cleveland Clinic,” (Artwork Archive, July 2024)

• Article: “Arts and crafts give greater life satisfaction than work, survey suggests” (The Guardian, 2024)

• Article: “Healing, Bridging, Thriving: A Reflection on the Intersection of Arts and Health” (NEA, July 2024)

• Article: “The power of healing: new WHO report shows how arts can help beat noncommunicable diseases” (WHO, Nov 2023)

• Article: “How Art Can Benefit Your Mental Health” (NY Times, May 2023)

• Review: “Engaging the Arts for Wellbeing in the United States of America” (National Library of Medicine, Feb 2022)

• Article: ”Strengthening Mental Health through The Arts” (Americans for the Arts, 2021)

• Review: “What is the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being?” (National Library of Medicine, 2019)

New York Creative Therapists
The People Concern
Americans for the Arts: Arts in Health

nursing & the arts

Study: Arts-based Pedagogy Effect on Nursing Competence

“Nursing practice requires a complex set of competencies, including clinical skills, interpersonal abilities, and humanistic practice [33]. Arts-based pedagogy has been used to address many of these competencies. Researchers suggest that arts-based nursing education can assist future nurses in developing a professional identity. The arts are believed to enhance critical thinking, diagnostic skills, and communication abilities."

Article: How the Arts Can Support Clinical Staff

“While the arts are not a panacea, the arts and artists are available resources that can help humanize and bring beauty and meaning to both the environment and practices of care. Artists are invaluable members of the interprofessional care team who can enhance the provision of patient-centered care.”

REPORTS

• ”Creative Art: Connection to Health and Well-Being” (Scientific Research, 2022)

• “Arts Strategies for Addressing the Opioid Crisis: Examining the Evidence” (NEA, October 2020)

• ”What is the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being?” (WHO, 2019)

• ”Creativity in later life” (NIH, 2014)

• ”Contemporary art in medicine: the Cleveland Clinic art collection,” (NIH, 2011)

• ”The State of The Arts in Healthcare in the U.S.” - PDF, (Arts & Health, 2009)