An early painting of Nye Bevan, produced in 1945. The building in the background may be Park Hospital in Trafford , Manchester; the first NHS hospital officially opened by Bevan in 1948. But it may also represent Bevan's work on housing reform. The trowel in the background, as such, may represent the laying of new foundations for the hospital, for housing, or as a wider symbol of the new foundations of the NHS and the Welfare State itself.
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I love it, it’s a great likeness
The building in the picture above is not Park Hospital Trafford, which has always been a fairly low red brick building until modern times. The image is more likely to be a representation of an idealised postwar Labour Government housing programme, expressed as a modernist high rise block of flats and reflects Bevan’s second Ministerial hat , Ie that of housing minister. This aspect of Bevans work was far less successful in terms of the numbers of units built, set against the ambitions of 1945.