Talks & Seminars
“Being There”: Panel Discussion on Portraiture
This discussion on portraiture today will explore themes such as intimacy, motherhood and cultural identity.
Join us for this special event with artists Chantal Joffe and Claudette Johnson, exhibition curator Ingrid Swenson, and writer, curator and broadcaster Hettie Judah. Joffe and Johnson are two of the 18 contemporary artists whose work features in the Being There exhibition which celebrates Bath Preservation Trust’s acquisition of a family group of four portraits by Thomas Gainsborough. This discussion on portraiture today will range across a number of themes such as intimacy, motherhood and cultural identity.
Early bird tickets are on sale now for £14, with the price rising to £18 on November 7th.
*Please note that this event will take place at our sister museum, The Museum of Bath Architecture, which is a 5-10 minute walk away from No.1 Royal Crescent.*
Doors will open at 6pm at the Museum of Bath Architecture, and a bar will be available to purchase drinks from.
The Being There exhibition at No.1 will be open that day until 6pm and can be visited free of charge from 5pm-6pm ahead of the panel talk.
About the speakers
Chantal Joffe lives and works in London. Whether her canvases measure ten inches or ten feet, Joffe aims not for realism but for brutal honesty. She recently created a large-scale and permanent artwork for London’s new Elizabeth Line station at Whitechapel. Her work will be on view in the exhibition Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood curated by Hettie Judah at Millennium Gallery, Sheffield, from 24 Oct 2024 until 21 January 2025. She is represented by Victoria Miro gallery, London.
Claudette Johnson RA MBE lives and works in London. She is one of the most prominent artists to have emerged from BLK Art Group and participated in many of the seminal exhibitions featuring Black artists during the 1980s and 90s. Recent solo exhibitions include Claudette Johnson: I Came to Dance, Modern Art Oxford (2019); Presence, The Courtauld Gallery, London (2023) and Darker Than Blue, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham (2024). This year, her commission for Brixton Underground station, Three Women, launched on 24 October and she is nominated for the 2024 Turner Prize at Tate Britain (to 16 February 2025). She is represented by Hollybush Gardens, London.
Hettie Judah is a curator, broadcaster and one of Britain’s leading writers on art. She has a monthly column for Apollo magazine and is a regular contributor to the Guardian, Frieze, Times Literary Supplement and BBC Radio 4’s Front Row. Her recent books include Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones (John Murray, 2022) and Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood (Thames & Hudson, 2024).
Ingrid Swenson MBE is a curator and writer. She was Director of the acclaimed arts organisation PEER, in east London from 1998 to 2021. She has worked with and commissioned over 150 artists including Mike Nelson, Martin Creed, Siobhan Hapaska, Fiona Banner, Jadé Fadojutimi and Lubna Chowdhary. She curated Stephen Cripps, In Real Life for Turner Contemporary, Margate (2022) and has published Masterpieces in Pieces (Hachette, 2022) and Shopping Lists, A Consuming Fascination (Cheerio, 2023).
Early bird tickets are on sale now for £14, with the price rising to £18 on November 7th.
*Please note that this event will take place at our sister museum, The Museum of Bath Architecture, which is a 5-10 minute walk away from No.1 Royal Crescent.*
Doors will open at 6pm at the Museum of Bath Architecture, and a bar will be available to purchase drinks from.
The Being There exhibition at No.1 will be open that day until 6pm and can be visited free of charge from 5pm-6pm ahead of the panel talk.
About the speakers
Chantal Joffe lives and works in London. Whether her canvases measure ten inches or ten feet, Joffe aims not for realism but for brutal honesty. She recently created a large-scale and permanent artwork for London’s new Elizabeth Line station at Whitechapel. Her work will be on view in the exhibition Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood curated by Hettie Judah at Millennium Gallery, Sheffield, from 24 Oct 2024 until 21 January 2025. She is represented by Victoria Miro gallery, London.
Claudette Johnson RA MBE lives and works in London. She is one of the most prominent artists to have emerged from BLK Art Group and participated in many of the seminal exhibitions featuring Black artists during the 1980s and 90s. Recent solo exhibitions include Claudette Johnson: I Came to Dance, Modern Art Oxford (2019); Presence, The Courtauld Gallery, London (2023) and Darker Than Blue, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham (2024). This year, her commission for Brixton Underground station, Three Women, launched on 24 October and she is nominated for the 2024 Turner Prize at Tate Britain (to 16 February 2025). She is represented by Hollybush Gardens, London.
Hettie Judah is a curator, broadcaster and one of Britain’s leading writers on art. She has a monthly column for Apollo magazine and is a regular contributor to the Guardian, Frieze, Times Literary Supplement and BBC Radio 4’s Front Row. Her recent books include Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones (John Murray, 2022) and Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood (Thames & Hudson, 2024).
Ingrid Swenson MBE is a curator and writer. She was Director of the acclaimed arts organisation PEER, in east London from 1998 to 2021. She has worked with and commissioned over 150 artists including Mike Nelson, Martin Creed, Siobhan Hapaska, Fiona Banner, Jadé Fadojutimi and Lubna Chowdhary. She curated Stephen Cripps, In Real Life for Turner Contemporary, Margate (2022) and has published Masterpieces in Pieces (Hachette, 2022) and Shopping Lists, A Consuming Fascination (Cheerio, 2023).
