Michele Angelo Petrone (1963-2007): archives

Contains the personal papers of Michele Angelo Petrone including early artworks and school reports, sketchbooks and notebooks, papers relating to his educational work with schools and universities, and papers relating to conferences and talks he gave. The archive also contains papers, photographs and original artworks relating to several exhibitions and workshops organised by Petrone such as the Emotional Cancer Journey, Touching the Rainbow, Colour Our Feelings and Missing. These files also include writings by other cancer patients about their experiences.

The archive also contains records regarding the organisation and running of MAP Foundation, along with a set of papers kept by Margaret Felton, a founder member of MAP Foundation.

1971-2010

46 boxes, 1 o/s box, 40 artworks, 6 digital items 3.253 MB (3253274 bytes)

The archive has been arranged into the following nine sections:

A Michele Angelo Petrone: personal papers

B Michele Angelo Petrone: diaries / sketchbooks

C Michele Angelo Petrone: creative work

D Michele Angelo Petrone: workshops and exhibitions

E Michele Angelo Petrone: MAP Foundation

F Michele Angelo Petrone: educational work

G Michele Angelo Petrone: conferences and talks

H Michele Angelo Petrone: papers and correspondence

J Margaret Felton's papers

The archives were given to the library at Wellcome Collection by the MAP Foundation in November 2012.

Michele Angelo Petrone (1963-2007) was a professional artist who was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease at the age of 30. Whilst he lay in hospital he painted several pieces which were the start of depicting his journey through illness and recovery. These paintings were subsequently shown at the Wigmore Hall in London, under the title Between Night and Day.

His work first came to the attention of healthcare professionals in 1996 when he gave a presentation of his paintings, with accompanying prose, at the CancerBACUP's 10th anniversary conference in Brighton. As a result of this presentation, he was invited to exhibit his paintings at a number of Sussex venues in 1997, under the title The Emotional Cancer Journey, which was also published as a book. The response to these exhibitions led to the work being used by health organisations and medical institutions across the UK and beyond.

The exhibition, Touching the Rainbow, helped patients and carers to 'colour their feelings' through paint. This was published in book form in 1999. A year later he extended the work to health professionals across the UK. Moving Pictures gave them the chance to paint their feelings about caring for patients with life-threatening illness.

In 2002 Michele set up the MAP Foundation, to promote expression, communication and understanding of the complex issues of serious illness and dying. He also contributed to a number of publications in the field of medical humanities. In 2016 MAP Foundation merged with ONCA, a charity and gallery that supports artists and audiences to engage with environmental and social challenges.

Wellcome holds a copy of Petrone: The Emotional Cancer Journey: powerful, hopeful, beautiful, images of the emotions and feelings experienced during the cancer journey.

This collection has been catalogued and is available to library members. Some items have access restrictions which are explained in the item-level catalogue records.