Join us for a special event with writer Diana Souhami, artist Sadie Lee and art historian and writer Rebecca Birrell as part of the exhibition Looking at Her. This exhibition explores portraiture and how artists turn to the figurative, non-figurative and the fictitious in their expansive depictions of people. Portraits of writers, poets and activists sit alongside speculative imaginings of interior worlds to explore women’s lives, for instance through domestic spaces and diary entries.
Diana Souhami is the author of Gluck: Her Biography, Gertrude and Alice, Greta and Cecil, The Trials of Radclyffe Hall (shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Biography and winner of the US Lambda Literary Award), Natalie and Romaine (originally published as Wild Girls), the bestselling Mrs Keppel and Her Daughter (also winer of the Lambda Literary Award and a New York Times ‘Notable Book of the Year’), Selkirk’s Island (winner of the Whitbread Biography Award), Coconut Chaos, Edith Cavell (winner of the EDP Jarrold East Anglian Book of the Year Award), Murder at Wrotham Hill (shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction), and the novel Gwendolen. Her most recent book is No Modernism Without Lesbians. She is a Rainbow List National Treasure and she lives in Cornwall.
Sadie Lee is an award-winning British figurative painter. Her challenging paintings focus on a range of subjects, including the representation of women in art, sexuality, gender and the aging body. She has been selected to show work in many group shows including exhibitions at The I.C.A. and Museum of London. Solo shows include exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery (London), Manchester City Art Gallery, Schwules Museum (Berlin) and Museum of Modern Art (Slovenia).
Rebecca Birrell is a Research Affiliate at The Fitzwilliam Museum, where she was Curator of 19th and 20th Century Paintings and Drawings between 2021-2023. She curated the rehang of Galleries 1-5 that opened in March 2024. She is currently a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at University of St Andrews. Her first book, This Dark Country: Women Artists, Still Life and Intimacy in the Early 20th Century was published by Bloomsbury in 2021. It was awarded an Antonia Frazer Award for a Biography in Progress by the Society of Authors in 2019. A Guardian/Observer Art Book of the Year 2021, it was described as ‘a striking act of collective empathy.’ It was also longlisted for the William M B Berger Prize for British Art History 2022 and shortlisted for the PEN Hessell Titlman Prize, 2022.
Accessibility
This event will take place in Buckingham House Lecture Theatre, the entrance to which does not require steps. There is space at the front for wheelchair users if desired, which is accessible via a lift. The drinks reception will take place in the foyer of Buckingham House which is also step-free.
Car Parking and Arrival
Upon arrival at the College, please come to the main entrance, the Porters’ Lodge, which has vehicle access and a generous dropping-off space, located on Buckingham Road which is off Huntingdon Road. Wheelchair access is available from the dropping-off point to the Porters’ Lodge.
If you are coming by car, parking for up to 70 guests is available in our car park located on Storey’s Way. The route from the car park to the Porters’ Lodge is paved in generally smooth stone, concrete or tiling. At one point there is a slight incline to the main College building. Alternatively, it is possible to be dropped off in front of the Porters’ Lodge.
