PORTRAITS FOR NHS HEROES was undeniably one of the defining artistic movements of the pandemic. It was an idea initiated by portrait artist Tom Croft in the first lockdown of 2020, and quickly snowballed into a global movement, reminding us of the power of portraiture by recording life events, people and stories. While award-winning philanthropic acts might not have been a given in Tom’s life plan, art certainly was. His father was an architect who loved art history, while his mother was a talented draughtswoman. Not only were there always books lying around the house about artists like Rembrandt, Hockney, Dürer and Frank Lloyd Wright, but there was also a regular stream of artistic luminaries, including abstract artist Margaret Bialokoz-Smith, who showed Tom how to screen print.
He still remembers the excitement he
