The Wellcome Trust

By looking into the distribution of artwork acquisition, we can see some key donors. We will be focusing on the donations of Henry Wellcome and Jay T. Last.

The Wellcome Trust

Henry Wellcome (1853 - 1936) was an American pharmaceutical entrepreneur and founder of the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome & Co. The company's success helped Wellcome ammass immense wealth, and as an avid traveller, he collected artifacts, books and medicine from South America and Africa. His collection was estimated to contain over a million objects. The Wellcome Collection is a part of the Wellcome Trust, the fourth wealthiest charitable foundation in the world, founded from the will of Henry Wellcome's pharmaceautical dynasty.

Around 1965, the Fower Museum received its share of the Wellcome Collection, gaining over 30,000 objects. The digital collections showcase 196 of those.

In African Objects, Colonial Collecting, and Materiality written by Carlee S. Forbes, Kate Anderson, Marci Jefcoat Burton, and Erica P. Jones:

The gift from the Wellcome Trust encapsulates a particular moment in history when increasingly violent or intrusive colonial and commercial endeavors brought a flood of objects from all over the world to Europe. When we look at Wellcome’s collection, made and acquired before 1936, we see a wide range of paths by which these objects traveled and entered his, and subsequently the Fowler’s, holdings. 

It's important to remember that these "artworks" are ethnographic objects: vessels, weapons, tools, clothing, and more. Are they seen as collector's items because they are removed from their original purpose?