Senior Care Residents Don’t Just Need Art. They Need Art History

Making art is essential to senior care residents’ health and well-being. Trained art therapists and talented volunteers help seniors construct objects that occupy hands and minds. But as an art history professor, volunteer, and former art director in a senior care facility, I would argue that they also need art history.

One resident I know, frustrated with the collage she was working on, exclaimed: “I’m sick of popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners! I want to learn about O’Keeffe and Van Gogh. Hell, I’d even take Grandma Moses!”  

Learning art history offers an alternative for those who believe they can’t make art. Granted, art therapists believe that everyone can make art. But some seniors are convinced they can’t. And they’ve thought so their entire life (think about your own relationship to math!). These folks often warm up to art history if given a chance. They should be made to feel that learning about it and making informed judgements is an accomplishment of its own. Which it is. Nor do they have to be excluded from art activities. They can help with exhibitions, write the museums labels or brochures, or even be docents. In the center where I worked, we initiated an art history certificate program that required residents to attend a certain number of PowerPoint lectures. Many graduates displayed their certificates in their rooms with pride.

Thinking about past art involves looking closely at history, some of which residents have actually lived through. I know a nonagenarian who was in the Nurse Cadet Corps during WWII. She’s proud of it––as well she should be––and loves war-era art like “Rosie the Riveter” and the art made in Japanese Internment camps. Teaching the history of art can also be an effective way to address social justice, gender, and diversity. In my experience, seniors want to talk about these things. They want to test out their ideas and hear the latest thinking on topical issues.

Moreover, seniors can often identify with the infirmities that aging artists suffered. For instance, Claude Monet’s cataract operations made him see (and paint) more blueish afterward. Frida Kahlo’s polio and chronic pain from her girlhood injury shaped her deeply personal self-portraits. Edward Weston’s Parkinson’s was tragic considering that his photographs demanded perfect stillness. Renoir’s horrible arthritis or Matisse’s confinement to a wheelchair come to mind. Most artists, if they lived long enough, faced an art-challenging illness at some point. Their struggles and occasional triumphs mirror those of our residents. 

Addressing famous artworks will make seniors recall their travels since tourism usually involves visiting museums. And who doesn’t want to share where they’ve gone and what they’ve seen? Speaking about art and museums provides a space wherein seniors can do just that. Showing famous artworks from well-known museums can help them conjure up delightful memories, as when they were traveling with their beloved partners.

Art history and art making need not be separate. A discussion or YouTube post of artists can proceed the projects made in the studio. The increasingly popular adult coloring books might be chosen for their art historical imagery. Obviously, while seniors are making objects, it’s best to avoid comparisons with famous art. But reminding them that well-known artists did similar things, or that their resultant pieces recall well known artworks can make the project more than just a past-time.

Having actual artworks, or at least reproductions of masterworks, would be a major improvement in residents’ aesthetic quality of life. And besides the endless sequence of mediocre movies we show them, how about films about historical artists? There are more than a hundred, and many are superb, such as Rembrandt (1936), Frida (2018), Pollock (2001), Woman Walks Ahead (2017), Big Eyes (2014), and even the Hollywood classics such as Lust for Life (1956), with Kirk Douglas as Vincent Van Gogh, or The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), with Charlton Heston as Michelangelo.

And as caregivers of every kind know, seniors love mementos. Artworks appear on everything––on postcards, bookmarks, art books, calendars, and the like. These objects are handsome and decorative and usually find a place in their rooms. They may remind residents of a museum visit, or of their family, or even of a recent discussion or art activity. One resident I know is rightly proud of the art history books she’s been collecting. She also takes great care in selecting an art-based calendar from year to year.

Teaching art history to seniors certainly does not require a Ph.D. Informed, impassioned volunteers either already know enough or can acquire knowledge with some preparation. Information can be found widely in books and on the internet. Even Wikipedia provides passable artists’ biographies. As with any teaching situation, there will be a range of knowledge and interests. Many residents already possess some exposure art history. It may have been a favorite course in college. Others will know very little and may be delighted to finally hear someone explain art with patience and verve. Some have been waiting all their lives for someone to help them make sense of modern art.

Art history is not just some boutique pursuit we’re forcing on people. The study of art involves experiencing the world with all its diverse peoples and cultures. It draws meaningfully on their life history and experience. And art is sensual, literally. It requires close looking and provides benefits that come with expressing ideas with others, listening, and processing content. A 2017 study from the National Endowment for the Arts found that seniors who not only created art but who had cultural experiences like visiting museums enjoyed more positive health outcomes and a longer life.1

I used to think that poet Mary Oliver’s rules for living life applied only to me: “1. Pay attention, 2. Be astonished, and 3. Tell others.”

Now I realize that giving senior care residents a sense of art history allows them to live this dream.  

1. Ilana Herzig, “Taking Your Grandparents to Museums Could Improve their Health,” Artsy, September 12, 2017: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-grandparents-museums-improve-health