Aliza Nisenbaum

Published by Tate on the occasion of Aliza Nisenbaum's exhibition Taking Care at Tate Liverpool.

Packed with sumptuous colours, lush foliage and natural beauty, this book is a joy to behold and a powerful and poignant record of an extraordinary artistic project.

Inspired by the dedication of Liverpool’s key workers, Aliza Nisenbaum decided to create a series of new paintings of the frontline NHS staff from Merseyside who have worked tirelessly for their community during the pandemic. This book captures these extraordinary portraits together, and tells the stories of the sitters, revealing the impact of the pandemic on their jobs, and on their lives.

In the summer of 2020, Nisenbaum contacted a few key members of Merseyside NHS staff, who agreed to sit for portraits. The staff included a professor of Outbreak Medicine, a respiratory doctor who became a father during the first wave, and a student nurse from a family of nurses who all chose to return to frontline work.

Over the next few weeks, talking to them via video link from her studio in the USA, Aliza Nisenbaum created a series of poignant and powerful portraits. Each sitter was depicted with the things that sustained them and gave them hope during that time.