Elizabeth Huey: The Kirkbride Plan

Elizabeth Huey: The Kirkbride Plan at Feigen Contemporary. "...Elizabeth Huey's newest paintings are inspired by her research into American asylums of the 19th century and fueled by her personal experiences. Thomas Story Kirkbride was a key innovator of the science of psychiatry in the United States. Acting on a belief in the restorative effects of bucolic, edifying surroundings, Kirkbride developed a moralized set of blueprints for hospitals extending the concept of architecture as antidote for the mentally ill. His enlightened architectural legacy, along with the legislative efforts of social reformers like Dorothea Dix, set the standard for asylum construction and implementation in the 19th century.