1 00:00:05,330 --> 00:00:06,550 - Hello, everyone, and welcome 2 00:00:06,550 --> 00:00:08,160 to the National Portrait Gallery. 3 00:00:08,160 --> 00:00:09,590 Thank you so much for joining us 4 00:00:09,590 --> 00:00:11,950 for this very exciting In Conversation today 5 00:00:11,950 --> 00:00:15,007 where we'll be introducing our brand-new exhibition, 6 00:00:15,007 --> 00:00:16,760 "Shakespeare to Winehouse, 7 00:00:16,760 --> 00:00:20,563 Icons from the National Portrait Gallery in London" to you. 8 00:00:21,680 --> 00:00:25,070 My name's Gill, I'm very excited to be managing 9 00:00:25,070 --> 00:00:26,920 some of the back end and the hosting 10 00:00:26,920 --> 00:00:28,160 of this particular programme 11 00:00:28,160 --> 00:00:30,610 and introducing our speaker to you today. 12 00:00:30,610 --> 00:00:34,620 We also have monitoring our chat, Alana, 13 00:00:34,620 --> 00:00:36,450 who is monitoring the Zoom chat 14 00:00:36,450 --> 00:00:38,550 and also the comments on Facebook. 15 00:00:38,550 --> 00:00:41,460 We do like our programmes to be as interactive as possible, 16 00:00:41,460 --> 00:00:43,400 so if you have any comments or observations 17 00:00:43,400 --> 00:00:45,020 throughout the course of the programme, 18 00:00:45,020 --> 00:00:46,640 please feel free to pop them in the chat, 19 00:00:46,640 --> 00:00:49,480 and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. 20 00:00:49,480 --> 00:00:52,770 Hector and Robert are also our technical wizards 21 00:00:52,770 --> 00:00:54,220 who are hanging out behind the scenes, 22 00:00:54,220 --> 00:00:55,670 and if there's anything we can do today 23 00:00:55,670 --> 00:00:58,320 to make the experience of this programme better for you, 24 00:00:58,320 --> 00:01:00,330 please feel free to let us know in the chat, 25 00:01:00,330 --> 00:01:02,320 and we'll do our very best to make sure 26 00:01:02,320 --> 00:01:04,870 it's as comfortable and as interesting as possible. 27 00:01:05,890 --> 00:01:07,250 The National Portrait Gallery 28 00:01:07,250 --> 00:01:09,880 is on the lands of the Ngambri and the Ngunnawal peoples, 29 00:01:09,880 --> 00:01:11,880 and I'd like to pay my respects to their Elders 30 00:01:11,880 --> 00:01:13,730 past, present, and emerging. 31 00:01:13,730 --> 00:01:15,080 I'd like to extend a warm welcome 32 00:01:15,080 --> 00:01:17,400 to any First Nations people who are joining us 33 00:01:17,400 --> 00:01:19,363 for this programme today as well. 34 00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:24,150 Well, I am extremely excited to be able to introduce 35 00:01:24,150 --> 00:01:26,050 our speaker, Jo Gilmour, to you today 36 00:01:26,050 --> 00:01:28,320 for a couple of reasons. 37 00:01:28,320 --> 00:01:30,950 One of the reasons is that the "Shakespeare to Winehouse" 38 00:01:30,950 --> 00:01:33,460 exhibition from the National Portrait Gallery in London 39 00:01:33,460 --> 00:01:37,270 is some of the most iconic works held by that collection. 40 00:01:37,270 --> 00:01:39,550 Now, that collection is massive compared to ours. 41 00:01:39,550 --> 00:01:43,350 They have over 215,000 portraits in their collection, 42 00:01:43,350 --> 00:01:45,770 and they've also been around for a lot longer 43 00:01:45,770 --> 00:01:49,290 than the National Portrait Gallery here in Canberra, 44 00:01:49,290 --> 00:01:51,090 so much so that I did a little bit 45 00:01:51,090 --> 00:01:52,900 of a nerdy look into the history 46 00:01:52,900 --> 00:01:54,500 of the National Portrait Gallery of Canberra. 47 00:01:54,500 --> 00:01:56,410 And I went through every single portrait 48 00:01:56,410 --> 00:01:58,920 that we've ever had in our building 49 00:01:58,920 --> 00:02:00,800 from the beginning, from the first day 50 00:02:00,800 --> 00:02:02,360 that the National Portrait Gallery opened, 51 00:02:02,360 --> 00:02:04,810 whether they were on loan to us from other institutions 52 00:02:04,810 --> 00:02:07,050 or whether they were our own collection. 53 00:02:07,050 --> 00:02:09,730 And this exhibition, you'd think I'd be excited 54 00:02:09,730 --> 00:02:11,250 about the big contemporary names, 55 00:02:11,250 --> 00:02:14,610 the Bowies and Winehouses, and I am, 56 00:02:14,610 --> 00:02:17,360 but this collection, this exhibition is old. 57 00:02:17,360 --> 00:02:20,560 And so we have the oldest works 58 00:02:20,560 --> 00:02:22,040 we have ever had in our building 59 00:02:22,040 --> 00:02:24,610 as well as some of the amazing contemporary portraits 60 00:02:24,610 --> 00:02:26,500 from the National Portrait Gallery of London, 61 00:02:26,500 --> 00:02:28,610 so much so that some of the works 62 00:02:28,610 --> 00:02:29,947 in this particular exhibition 63 00:02:29,947 --> 00:02:33,000 are 200 years older than any other portrait 64 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:35,726 that has ever been on display on our walls. 65 00:02:35,726 --> 00:02:37,150 So that's excitement number one. 66 00:02:37,150 --> 00:02:40,211 Excitement number two is that Joanna Gilmour, 67 00:02:40,211 --> 00:02:42,700 our curator of collections and research, 68 00:02:42,700 --> 00:02:46,180 is also an old expert. (laughs) 69 00:02:46,180 --> 00:02:49,930 She is a historic portrait nerd, 70 00:02:49,930 --> 00:02:52,080 and I'm sure she wouldn't mind me describing her as that. 71 00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:54,190 She has the most amazing knowledge 72 00:02:54,190 --> 00:02:56,180 about portraits, vintage portraits. 73 00:02:56,180 --> 00:02:58,250 So I can't wait to hear what she has to say 74 00:02:58,250 --> 00:03:01,403 about the selection that she's made to share with you today. 75 00:03:02,480 --> 00:03:04,400 And probably reason number three, actually, 76 00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:06,050 if I'm gonna throw one out there, 77 00:03:06,050 --> 00:03:08,720 is that the portraits that she has selected 78 00:03:08,720 --> 00:03:11,130 happen to be of women, 79 00:03:11,130 --> 00:03:14,050 and I suppose one of the misconceptions 80 00:03:14,050 --> 00:03:15,130 about portrait galleries, 81 00:03:15,130 --> 00:03:18,850 particularly if we're talking about old portraits, 82 00:03:18,850 --> 00:03:21,530 is that they're often of old white men. 83 00:03:21,530 --> 00:03:24,350 So I'm really happy that Jo has picked 84 00:03:24,350 --> 00:03:26,170 this incredible selection of powerful 85 00:03:26,170 --> 00:03:28,970 and intriguing women to tell you some of these stories. 86 00:03:28,970 --> 00:03:31,640 So without further ado, I'd like to hand over 87 00:03:31,640 --> 00:03:34,210 to our powerful and intriguing woman, 88 00:03:34,210 --> 00:03:36,093 Joanna Gilmour, take it away, Jo. 89 00:03:37,340 --> 00:03:39,626 - I'm not sure I warrant that introduction, Gill, 90 00:03:39,626 --> 00:03:41,430 (laughs) but thank you very much. 91 00:03:41,430 --> 00:03:43,490 And I think everyone will probably learn very quickly 92 00:03:43,490 --> 00:03:46,300 that my knowledge of old portraits 93 00:03:46,300 --> 00:03:48,340 is about 300 years younger 94 00:03:48,340 --> 00:03:51,750 than (laughs) the oldest work in this exhibition. 95 00:03:51,750 --> 00:03:54,330 So while it's been really wonderful 96 00:03:54,330 --> 00:03:55,577 to have this exhibition here, 97 00:03:55,577 --> 00:03:58,040 and it is really wonderful to have this exhibition here, 98 00:03:58,040 --> 00:04:01,200 we have all been to doing a lot of brushing up 99 00:04:01,200 --> 00:04:05,000 on portraits from the 16th and 17th centuries, 100 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:07,710 because as Gill explained, we've never had 101 00:04:07,710 --> 00:04:10,530 that sort of material on display here before, 102 00:04:10,530 --> 00:04:14,630 so it's really exciting for a number of reasons. 103 00:04:14,630 --> 00:04:18,400 I'd like also to acknowledge the traditional owners, 104 00:04:18,400 --> 00:04:19,710 the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples 105 00:04:19,710 --> 00:04:22,950 who are the traditional custodians of Canberra, 106 00:04:22,950 --> 00:04:25,380 the Canberra region, and who've been telling their stories 107 00:04:25,380 --> 00:04:26,950 on this country, their country 108 00:04:26,950 --> 00:04:29,280 for thousands of generations. 109 00:04:29,280 --> 00:04:32,010 And I'd also like to acknowledge the traditional owners 110 00:04:32,010 --> 00:04:33,700 of all of the parts of the continent 111 00:04:33,700 --> 00:04:36,333 that you might be Zooming in from today. 112 00:04:37,590 --> 00:04:40,720 I'm also really happy to be sort of launching 113 00:04:40,720 --> 00:04:43,180 this digital programme of events 114 00:04:43,180 --> 00:04:46,540 associated with the "Shakespeare to Winehouse" exhibition, 115 00:04:46,540 --> 00:04:49,634 which opened here on the weekend. 116 00:04:49,634 --> 00:04:53,530 It's an absolutely fantastic exhibition of 84 portraits 117 00:04:53,530 --> 00:04:56,200 from the National Portrait Gallery in London 118 00:04:56,200 --> 00:04:57,820 that encompasses everything 119 00:04:57,820 --> 00:05:02,820 from 16th century panel paintings right up to 21st century 120 00:05:03,130 --> 00:05:07,020 digital and computer-generated artworks. 121 00:05:07,020 --> 00:05:09,790 And also of course, which it goes without saying, 122 00:05:09,790 --> 00:05:12,730 and as the title of the exhibition probably suggests, 123 00:05:12,730 --> 00:05:14,810 it includes images of people 124 00:05:14,810 --> 00:05:17,700 who have been shaping society and culture 125 00:05:17,700 --> 00:05:21,070 since the 1550s right up until now, 126 00:05:21,070 --> 00:05:23,980 and not just British society and culture, I might add, 127 00:05:23,980 --> 00:05:26,360 but society and culture worldwide 128 00:05:26,360 --> 00:05:28,543 and society and culture globally. 129 00:05:30,030 --> 00:05:32,040 And although from the outside, 130 00:05:32,040 --> 00:05:34,960 it might seem like it's just an exhibition 131 00:05:34,960 --> 00:05:37,760 of legendary names and famous faces, 132 00:05:37,760 --> 00:05:40,560 at its core, "Shakespeare to Winehouse" is an exhibition, 133 00:05:40,560 --> 00:05:42,930 I think, that's about creativity. 134 00:05:42,930 --> 00:05:44,730 It's an exhibition first and foremost, 135 00:05:44,730 --> 00:05:46,480 that's about art history 136 00:05:46,480 --> 00:05:48,550 and specifically the art of portraiture 137 00:05:48,550 --> 00:05:51,140 and the way that artists across a span 138 00:05:51,140 --> 00:05:54,910 of almost 500 years have been dealing with questions 139 00:05:54,910 --> 00:05:58,990 of how to capture or convey things like power, 140 00:05:58,990 --> 00:06:03,550 identity, love, loss, selfhood, and fame. 141 00:06:03,550 --> 00:06:06,610 So it's also very much an exhibition 142 00:06:06,610 --> 00:06:09,220 that takes as its starting point in a way, 143 00:06:09,220 --> 00:06:12,530 as NPG London does, this idea that there's more 144 00:06:12,530 --> 00:06:15,280 to portraiture than just a transcription 145 00:06:15,280 --> 00:06:18,940 or an accurate record of what someone looks like. 146 00:06:18,940 --> 00:06:20,930 And for centuries, for as long as artists 147 00:06:20,930 --> 00:06:22,160 have been making portraits, 148 00:06:22,160 --> 00:06:24,560 artists have been tackling that issue 149 00:06:24,560 --> 00:06:26,560 of how do you create a portrait 150 00:06:26,560 --> 00:06:29,700 that isn't just a record of what someone looks like 151 00:06:29,700 --> 00:06:32,720 but which really tries and captures, 152 00:06:32,720 --> 00:06:36,520 capture in a compelling way who that person is, 153 00:06:36,520 --> 00:06:39,240 what is it about them that makes them extraordinary 154 00:06:39,240 --> 00:06:41,293 or unique or interesting. 155 00:06:42,620 --> 00:06:45,320 So in that, I guess you'd say it's an exhibition 156 00:06:45,320 --> 00:06:49,280 that is also about what distinguishes portraiture 157 00:06:49,280 --> 00:06:52,060 from other visual arts genres. 158 00:06:52,060 --> 00:06:55,520 And for that reason, it's also very much an exhibition 159 00:06:55,520 --> 00:06:59,180 that's about all sorts of human characteristics 160 00:06:59,180 --> 00:07:03,350 and experiences, and to borrow that line from Hamlet, 161 00:07:03,350 --> 00:07:04,730 it's an exhibition that really is 162 00:07:04,730 --> 00:07:08,710 about the "thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to" 163 00:07:08,710 --> 00:07:12,020 and how those experiences or those natural shocks 164 00:07:12,020 --> 00:07:15,250 are relatable and resonant and meaningful, 165 00:07:15,250 --> 00:07:17,691 no matter what century we're living in 166 00:07:17,691 --> 00:07:21,370 and no matter what century these portraits were created in. 167 00:07:21,370 --> 00:07:24,880 And as Gill explained, with that in mind, 168 00:07:24,880 --> 00:07:28,530 what I've prepared for this discussion this afternoon 169 00:07:28,530 --> 00:07:32,520 is a sample of stories from across the almost six centuries 170 00:07:32,520 --> 00:07:35,170 represented in "Shakespeare to Winehouse," 171 00:07:35,170 --> 00:07:37,510 which I hope will both give you a sense 172 00:07:37,510 --> 00:07:40,280 of the scope of the exhibition 173 00:07:40,280 --> 00:07:43,290 as well as the way that it's been structured. 174 00:07:43,290 --> 00:07:46,000 And I think that's really sort of a key thing to remember 175 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:48,420 about "Shakespeare to Winehouse." 176 00:07:48,420 --> 00:07:51,810 And any of you who've been to NPG London before, 177 00:07:51,810 --> 00:07:55,060 and for me, as someone who visits the NPG 178 00:07:55,060 --> 00:07:56,590 every time I'm in London, 179 00:07:56,590 --> 00:08:00,650 it's literally one of my favourite museums in the world, 180 00:08:00,650 --> 00:08:02,670 I think what's especially interesting 181 00:08:02,670 --> 00:08:05,100 about the "Shakespeare to Winehouse" exhibition 182 00:08:05,100 --> 00:08:09,600 is that the works in it aren't arranged chronologically. 183 00:08:09,600 --> 00:08:12,460 So ordinarily, if you go to London, you go to the NPG, 184 00:08:12,460 --> 00:08:14,130 their permanent collection displays 185 00:08:14,130 --> 00:08:16,157 are ordered chronologically, 186 00:08:16,157 --> 00:08:18,190 and you get this wonderful sort of visual timeline 187 00:08:18,190 --> 00:08:21,360 of British history through the faces of the people 188 00:08:21,360 --> 00:08:22,310 who have shaped it. 189 00:08:23,330 --> 00:08:24,690 But in this exhibition, 190 00:08:24,690 --> 00:08:28,060 rather than grouping things chronologically 191 00:08:28,060 --> 00:08:31,310 or stylistically, the curators who were lucky enough 192 00:08:31,310 --> 00:08:33,800 to put it together have grouped all of the works 193 00:08:33,800 --> 00:08:36,570 according to a series of themes 194 00:08:36,570 --> 00:08:38,730 that are all intrinsic to portraiture 195 00:08:38,730 --> 00:08:42,620 and that persist in portraits from the 16th century 196 00:08:42,620 --> 00:08:45,170 right up until contemporary times. 197 00:08:45,170 --> 00:08:49,670 And that in a way enables you to see the way that portraits, 198 00:08:49,670 --> 00:08:52,450 even though they might've been created centuries apart 199 00:08:52,450 --> 00:08:55,670 or they might be of like diametrically opposite people 200 00:08:55,670 --> 00:08:58,810 in all sorts of ways, they're still able 201 00:08:58,810 --> 00:09:00,550 to sort of share the same language 202 00:09:00,550 --> 00:09:02,990 or be in conversation with each other 203 00:09:02,990 --> 00:09:05,740 and for that conversation to somehow make sense. 204 00:09:05,740 --> 00:09:08,970 So it's a really refreshing and wonderful way 205 00:09:08,970 --> 00:09:13,020 to see in NPG London's collection displayed. 206 00:09:13,020 --> 00:09:16,040 And secondly, as we've recently celebrated 207 00:09:16,040 --> 00:09:18,540 International Women's Day, and being someone 208 00:09:18,540 --> 00:09:20,360 who thinks it should be International Women's Day 209 00:09:20,360 --> 00:09:24,880 every day, I've chosen seven portraits of great women 210 00:09:24,880 --> 00:09:26,270 that are in "Shakespeare to Winehouse." 211 00:09:26,270 --> 00:09:27,990 There are lots of really good portraits 212 00:09:27,990 --> 00:09:29,380 of women in this show. 213 00:09:29,380 --> 00:09:31,520 I've just selected seven of them. 214 00:09:31,520 --> 00:09:34,280 And I thought I'd talk about those portraits 215 00:09:34,280 --> 00:09:36,580 with reference to how their subjects 216 00:09:36,580 --> 00:09:40,980 exemplify a certain group of characteristics, 217 00:09:40,980 --> 00:09:44,890 those characteristics being wit, creativity, 218 00:09:44,890 --> 00:09:49,850 authority, strength, adaptability, courage, 219 00:09:49,850 --> 00:09:53,370 and wisdom, all of which you might be inclined 220 00:09:53,370 --> 00:09:55,770 to think of as the type of characteristics that, 221 00:09:55,770 --> 00:09:57,670 historically speaking at least, 222 00:09:57,670 --> 00:10:02,670 weren't always a feature or a focus of portraits of women. 223 00:10:03,020 --> 00:10:04,660 So with that, Hector, we'll have a look 224 00:10:04,660 --> 00:10:06,193 at the first slide, please. 225 00:10:09,230 --> 00:10:14,113 And this is, for me, a lady who exemplifies wit. 226 00:10:16,360 --> 00:10:17,980 Her name's Nell Gwyn. 227 00:10:17,980 --> 00:10:21,850 The painting is by an artist named Simon Verelst, 228 00:10:21,850 --> 00:10:24,083 painted around 1680. 229 00:10:25,500 --> 00:10:28,850 And I think, I mean, she's fantastic for a lot of reasons, 230 00:10:28,850 --> 00:10:30,040 but as an artwork, 231 00:10:30,040 --> 00:10:34,460 I think this work is a particularly fantastic, 232 00:10:34,460 --> 00:10:36,850 another really great feature about this exhibition 233 00:10:36,850 --> 00:10:39,120 is that it includes a number of really 234 00:10:39,120 --> 00:10:41,190 sort of rich and telling examples 235 00:10:41,190 --> 00:10:45,980 of the way that portraits evidence or give you a lens 236 00:10:45,980 --> 00:10:48,880 onto the social and historical conditions 237 00:10:48,880 --> 00:10:50,990 that were in operation at the time 238 00:10:51,830 --> 00:10:54,360 that portraits were created. 239 00:10:54,360 --> 00:10:55,930 Or I guess the other way to look at it 240 00:10:55,930 --> 00:10:58,230 is the fantastic lenses onto the way 241 00:10:58,230 --> 00:11:02,330 that different social or historical or political factors 242 00:11:02,330 --> 00:11:04,740 sort of come through in artworks, 243 00:11:04,740 --> 00:11:07,330 sometimes without even realising it. 244 00:11:07,330 --> 00:11:09,770 And this is perhaps particularly true of portraiture, 245 00:11:09,770 --> 00:11:12,710 I'd argue, and that's partly because 246 00:11:12,710 --> 00:11:15,240 of the individual biographies or stories 247 00:11:15,240 --> 00:11:17,173 that are represented in portraits, 248 00:11:18,160 --> 00:11:21,370 but also because of what portraits tell you 249 00:11:21,370 --> 00:11:25,960 about changing ideas about the nature and the purpose of art 250 00:11:25,960 --> 00:11:30,470 and the way that the actual nature of representation 251 00:11:30,470 --> 00:11:34,150 and styles of representation were very much influenced 252 00:11:34,150 --> 00:11:35,720 by those kind of bigger-picture 253 00:11:35,720 --> 00:11:39,050 or bigger external factors as well. 254 00:11:39,050 --> 00:11:41,350 And in saying that, I'm thinking in particular 255 00:11:41,350 --> 00:11:43,780 of many of the historical works in the exhibition. 256 00:11:43,780 --> 00:11:46,470 So there's some fantastic panel paintings, 257 00:11:46,470 --> 00:11:48,600 which tell you a lot about the way artists 258 00:11:48,600 --> 00:11:51,900 would've had to operate during the Protestant Reformation, 259 00:11:51,900 --> 00:11:55,410 for example, and how religious factors 260 00:11:55,410 --> 00:11:58,320 influenced the representation of individuals. 261 00:11:58,320 --> 00:12:00,183 And then you've got people like Nell Gwyn. 262 00:12:00,183 --> 00:12:03,500 So this is a painting from the 17th century, 263 00:12:03,500 --> 00:12:08,010 which to me is incredibly illustrative 264 00:12:08,010 --> 00:12:09,853 of the time in which she lived. 265 00:12:11,010 --> 00:12:16,010 So for me, this is a wonderful sort of Restoration artefact. 266 00:12:16,540 --> 00:12:19,440 So Nell, among other things, 267 00:12:19,440 --> 00:12:23,200 she was one of the first women to become, 268 00:12:23,200 --> 00:12:25,430 to be a professional actor in England. 269 00:12:25,430 --> 00:12:28,730 And for those of you who are familiar with English history, 270 00:12:28,730 --> 00:12:33,210 you'll know that in late 1640s, 271 00:12:33,210 --> 00:12:35,950 King Charles I first was executed. 272 00:12:35,950 --> 00:12:38,480 That was followed by a period of just over a decade 273 00:12:38,480 --> 00:12:41,720 called the in Interregnum when Oliver Cromwell, 274 00:12:41,720 --> 00:12:44,890 who's also in the exhibition, by the way, was in charge. 275 00:12:44,890 --> 00:12:48,840 And it was a very sort of puritanical Protestant regime, 276 00:12:48,840 --> 00:12:52,510 and things like theatre and music and poetry and art 277 00:12:52,510 --> 00:12:54,210 and all of these things that were, 278 00:12:55,280 --> 00:12:56,810 in the puritanical way of thinking, 279 00:12:56,810 --> 00:12:59,960 were considered idolatrous or sinful or what have you 280 00:12:59,960 --> 00:13:01,573 were very much curtailed. 281 00:13:02,450 --> 00:13:07,270 When Charles II is restored to the throne in 1660, 282 00:13:08,660 --> 00:13:11,740 all of those things come back with a vengeance, 283 00:13:11,740 --> 00:13:13,790 and Nell is one of the performers, 284 00:13:13,790 --> 00:13:18,130 one of the creative people who was really able to, I guess, 285 00:13:18,130 --> 00:13:21,140 make the most of the re-flowering of theatre 286 00:13:21,140 --> 00:13:24,510 and art and so forth, all of those sinful things 287 00:13:24,510 --> 00:13:27,173 in the Restoration, in the early Restoration period. 288 00:13:28,370 --> 00:13:32,370 Her real name was Eleanor Gwyn, but she's known as Nell. 289 00:13:32,370 --> 00:13:34,883 She was born around about 1651. 290 00:13:36,530 --> 00:13:40,590 And whereas a lot of the facts about Nell's early life 291 00:13:41,639 --> 00:13:44,710 are somewhat unclear or subject to debate, 292 00:13:44,710 --> 00:13:48,010 it would seem that for whatever reason, 293 00:13:48,010 --> 00:13:51,200 there was some sort of a connection between Nell's family 294 00:13:51,200 --> 00:13:54,260 and the family of a man who owned a theatre 295 00:13:54,260 --> 00:13:58,960 called the King's Theatre in London in the 1660s, 296 00:13:58,960 --> 00:14:02,060 and by the age of about 12 or 13, 297 00:14:02,060 --> 00:14:04,900 Nell is thought to have been working at that theatre. 298 00:14:04,900 --> 00:14:07,030 She used to shuck oysters, 299 00:14:07,030 --> 00:14:11,910 and she would sell oranges to the patrons of the theatre. 300 00:14:11,910 --> 00:14:14,890 And then by the time she was 15 or 16, 301 00:14:14,890 --> 00:14:17,790 it seems that she had graduated from shucking oysters 302 00:14:17,790 --> 00:14:21,760 and selling oranges to actually performing on the stage. 303 00:14:21,760 --> 00:14:25,770 and the very famous English diarist, Samuel Pepys, 304 00:14:25,770 --> 00:14:29,760 he writes, for example, in December 1666, 305 00:14:29,760 --> 00:14:32,790 that he had seen Nell perform at the King's Theatre. 306 00:14:32,790 --> 00:14:37,790 He called her "pretty, witty Nell," and he also recorded 307 00:14:38,150 --> 00:14:42,120 that he thought Nell wasn't so good in serious roles, 308 00:14:42,120 --> 00:14:46,440 but in comic roles, or what Pepys called mad parts, 309 00:14:46,440 --> 00:14:49,330 Nell was beyond imitation. 310 00:14:49,330 --> 00:14:51,310 And then of course, just a year or two 311 00:14:51,310 --> 00:14:55,570 after Pepys had first seen one of Nell's stage performances, 312 00:14:55,570 --> 00:14:58,600 she reached a new level of notoriety 313 00:14:58,600 --> 00:15:02,850 when she and King Charles II became lovers, 314 00:15:02,850 --> 00:15:06,660 and unsurprisingly, it's that aspect of her story 315 00:15:06,660 --> 00:15:08,990 which history has tended to focus on. 316 00:15:08,990 --> 00:15:12,340 And more often than not, if you come across a reference 317 00:15:12,340 --> 00:15:14,260 to Nell Gwyn, it'll be a description of her 318 00:15:14,260 --> 00:15:17,800 as the mistress of Charles II, 319 00:15:17,800 --> 00:15:21,050 as if that's her sort of only claim to fame. 320 00:15:21,050 --> 00:15:23,290 And apart from the fact that that description 321 00:15:23,290 --> 00:15:27,090 very much downplays the significance and the longevity 322 00:15:27,090 --> 00:15:28,893 of her relationship with Charles II, 323 00:15:29,870 --> 00:15:32,210 they had two children together. 324 00:15:32,210 --> 00:15:35,390 He purchased a very fancy house for her on Pall Mall, 325 00:15:35,390 --> 00:15:37,580 and also he made sure that she would be 326 00:15:37,580 --> 00:15:39,870 looked after financially after his death. 327 00:15:39,870 --> 00:15:42,453 So she wasn't just a bit on the side or a fling. 328 00:15:43,337 --> 00:15:45,990 This was a, you know, substantial relationship. 329 00:15:45,990 --> 00:15:49,760 That sort of characterization of her as just a mistress 330 00:15:49,760 --> 00:15:52,480 also neglects to mention her significance, 331 00:15:52,480 --> 00:15:55,010 not just as an actor, but as a woman 332 00:15:55,010 --> 00:15:58,840 who used her considerable wit and worldliness 333 00:15:58,840 --> 00:16:01,480 to make a life for herself at court 334 00:16:01,480 --> 00:16:03,750 and in this sort of sphere of life 335 00:16:03,750 --> 00:16:05,380 which she wouldn't, she had, you know, 336 00:16:05,380 --> 00:16:07,640 she was very, from very humble origins, 337 00:16:07,640 --> 00:16:11,549 and she wouldn't ordinarily have had access 338 00:16:11,549 --> 00:16:15,920 to that sort lifestyle unless she made it for herself. 339 00:16:15,920 --> 00:16:19,160 And what I love, I think, about this particular painting 340 00:16:19,160 --> 00:16:24,160 is that it's a wonderful example of her not being shamed 341 00:16:24,680 --> 00:16:27,830 by who she was, not being shamed by what she did 342 00:16:27,830 --> 00:16:29,180 and how she became famous. 343 00:16:29,180 --> 00:16:31,180 And indeed, it's a very early example, 344 00:16:31,180 --> 00:16:35,970 I'd argue, of an actor using her image 345 00:16:35,970 --> 00:16:38,830 to very much kind of promote her own notoriety 346 00:16:38,830 --> 00:16:40,420 and promote her own fame 347 00:16:40,420 --> 00:16:43,440 and establish herself as a celebrity. 348 00:16:43,440 --> 00:16:45,380 So you'll see, she's very saucily dressed. 349 00:16:45,380 --> 00:16:48,460 She's basically in her underwear. 350 00:16:48,460 --> 00:16:50,850 People like Samuel Pepys, who's Pepys by name, 351 00:16:50,850 --> 00:16:52,930 peeps by nature from the sounds of it, 352 00:16:52,930 --> 00:16:56,560 he records being invited to Nell's dressing room, 353 00:16:56,560 --> 00:17:00,860 being invited backstage to see her dress in a costume 354 00:17:00,860 --> 00:17:03,120 for her different roles. 355 00:17:03,120 --> 00:17:07,130 So she was someone who very much knew her worth 356 00:17:07,130 --> 00:17:09,460 as a rather sort of salacious and saucy 357 00:17:09,460 --> 00:17:13,040 and gorgeous individual and who very much played up 358 00:17:13,040 --> 00:17:15,480 to of that sort of degree of notoriety. 359 00:17:15,480 --> 00:17:17,920 And I think you get a wonderful sense of that 360 00:17:17,920 --> 00:17:21,540 from this portrait, those ridiculously rosy cheeks, 361 00:17:21,540 --> 00:17:24,423 the very racily exposed breast. 362 00:17:26,334 --> 00:17:29,810 It's just fantastic, and also very interestingly, 363 00:17:29,810 --> 00:17:32,010 the pearl necklace, bearing in mind that pearls are, 364 00:17:32,010 --> 00:17:36,100 of course, a symbol of virginity and purity. 365 00:17:36,100 --> 00:17:37,490 We'll talk a little bit more about that 366 00:17:37,490 --> 00:17:40,410 in relation to Elizabeth I when we see her. 367 00:17:40,410 --> 00:17:44,290 So yeah, fabulous subject, fabulous object, 368 00:17:44,290 --> 00:17:46,610 and a really great sort of synthesis, 369 00:17:46,610 --> 00:17:50,980 I think, of yeah, all of those things about portraiture 370 00:17:50,980 --> 00:17:54,350 that distinguish it from other art forms. 371 00:17:54,350 --> 00:17:55,540 So that's enough about Nell. 372 00:17:55,540 --> 00:17:57,490 Should we go to the next slide, Hector? 373 00:18:00,360 --> 00:18:03,810 Okay, so apologies to everyone who's already heard me 374 00:18:03,810 --> 00:18:07,110 bang on about this picture, but it's probably, 375 00:18:07,110 --> 00:18:11,670 it is easily my favourite work in the exhibition. 376 00:18:11,670 --> 00:18:13,560 The subjects are the Bronte sisters. 377 00:18:13,560 --> 00:18:16,310 So we've got Anne on the left, 378 00:18:16,310 --> 00:18:19,860 Emily in the middle, and Charlotte on the right. 379 00:18:19,860 --> 00:18:21,270 And if you look closely at the picture, 380 00:18:21,270 --> 00:18:25,260 you can probably see a kind of a shadowy figure 381 00:18:25,260 --> 00:18:28,780 in the background there between Emily and Charlotte. 382 00:18:28,780 --> 00:18:32,410 And that is thought, it is believed now 383 00:18:32,410 --> 00:18:36,070 to be a painted-over self-portrait 384 00:18:36,070 --> 00:18:38,480 of the artist who created this work, 385 00:18:38,480 --> 00:18:42,280 which was the sisters' brother, Branwell Bronte. 386 00:18:42,280 --> 00:18:44,683 He was about 17 years old when he painted it. 387 00:18:45,520 --> 00:18:48,370 It was painted, we think, around 1834. 388 00:18:48,370 --> 00:18:51,600 And sort of to give you an idea of the sitters at the time, 389 00:18:51,600 --> 00:18:56,210 Anne would've been maybe about 14 or 15 when it was painted. 390 00:18:56,210 --> 00:18:57,760 Emily would've been about 16, 391 00:18:57,760 --> 00:18:59,810 and Charlotte would've been about 18. 392 00:18:59,810 --> 00:19:04,400 So it's a number of years before they published the poetry 393 00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:06,810 and subsequently the novels that have made them 394 00:19:06,810 --> 00:19:08,770 some of the most celebrated writers 395 00:19:08,770 --> 00:19:10,983 in the English language, quite rightfully. 396 00:19:12,020 --> 00:19:15,440 But I think the other thing that you can't help but notice 397 00:19:15,440 --> 00:19:19,320 about the portrait is the condition that it's in. 398 00:19:19,320 --> 00:19:21,440 And that's because after it was painted, 399 00:19:21,440 --> 00:19:25,820 it sort of went missing for a number of years, 400 00:19:25,820 --> 00:19:27,690 until 1914, in fact. 401 00:19:27,690 --> 00:19:30,300 So what's that, 70 years or 80? 402 00:19:30,300 --> 00:19:33,120 My maths is terrible. That's why I work in an gallery. 403 00:19:33,120 --> 00:19:37,030 But (laughs) yeah, so it was gone missing, 404 00:19:37,030 --> 00:19:41,030 it was believed lost, and then in 1914, 405 00:19:41,030 --> 00:19:44,550 it was found folded up on top of a cupboard 406 00:19:45,828 --> 00:19:50,828 in the family of Charlotte Bronte's husband's second wife. 407 00:19:53,170 --> 00:19:55,564 It's a long explanation, which I won't go into, 408 00:19:55,564 --> 00:19:59,790 but basically, the portrait was located in 1914, 409 00:19:59,790 --> 00:20:03,010 which is when NPG London acquired it 410 00:20:03,010 --> 00:20:06,610 and made what must've been for the time 411 00:20:06,610 --> 00:20:08,800 an incredibly radical decision 412 00:20:08,800 --> 00:20:12,090 not to conserve the work, as you can see. 413 00:20:12,090 --> 00:20:15,850 You look at this work, you can see there's that massive hole 414 00:20:15,850 --> 00:20:18,910 where the paint has just sort of completely flaked off 415 00:20:18,910 --> 00:20:21,480 in the very sort of centre of the composition. 416 00:20:21,480 --> 00:20:23,210 There's the crease marks down the centre 417 00:20:23,210 --> 00:20:24,560 and across the middle. 418 00:20:24,560 --> 00:20:28,590 There's other sort of sections where the paint's fallen off. 419 00:20:28,590 --> 00:20:30,150 When you see the work in the exhibition, 420 00:20:30,150 --> 00:20:32,130 you can't sort of see it from this reproduction, 421 00:20:32,130 --> 00:20:36,570 but the work has obviously been taken off 422 00:20:36,570 --> 00:20:38,820 its original stretcher at some point, 423 00:20:38,820 --> 00:20:40,880 and you can see the sort of rusty hole, 424 00:20:40,880 --> 00:20:42,660 sort of nail holes where it would originally 425 00:20:42,660 --> 00:20:45,390 have been attached to its stretcher. 426 00:20:45,390 --> 00:20:50,150 So it really is this very kind of warts-and-all object, 427 00:20:50,150 --> 00:20:53,150 and for conservators in 1914 428 00:20:55,530 --> 00:20:57,570 not to make the decision to make it look all, 429 00:20:57,570 --> 00:20:58,970 sort of patch it up and make it look 430 00:20:58,970 --> 00:21:00,380 sort of glorious and beautiful, 431 00:21:00,380 --> 00:21:02,660 bearing in mind that by 1914, 432 00:21:02,660 --> 00:21:04,380 the Bronte sisters were recognised 433 00:21:04,380 --> 00:21:06,700 for the significance of their achievements, 434 00:21:06,700 --> 00:21:10,330 unlike during their lifetimes, their short lifetimes, 435 00:21:10,330 --> 00:21:13,140 it's really quite interesting certainly from a museum 436 00:21:13,140 --> 00:21:14,470 and sort of conservation perspective 437 00:21:14,470 --> 00:21:18,350 that they didn't make the decision to tart it up 438 00:21:18,350 --> 00:21:19,497 and, you know, make it look 439 00:21:19,497 --> 00:21:22,040 like a sort of a beautiful grand portrait. 440 00:21:22,040 --> 00:21:25,160 So there's all sorts of things going on with this work 441 00:21:25,160 --> 00:21:27,500 and all sorts of reasons why I love it so much, 442 00:21:27,500 --> 00:21:30,040 not the least of which is that it's a work 443 00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:33,090 which very much kind of refutes the perception 444 00:21:33,090 --> 00:21:34,570 that you might have in your head 445 00:21:34,570 --> 00:21:37,610 when you hear the words National Portrait Gallery. 446 00:21:37,610 --> 00:21:40,620 It's actually a work that demonstrates that, you know, 447 00:21:40,620 --> 00:21:42,510 just because something isn't painted 448 00:21:42,510 --> 00:21:43,660 by a professional artist 449 00:21:43,660 --> 00:21:46,440 and doesn't look as if it's in particularly great condition 450 00:21:46,440 --> 00:21:49,120 doesn't make it a really good work. 451 00:21:49,120 --> 00:21:51,370 And in fact, whenever I look at this work and I, 452 00:21:51,370 --> 00:21:54,420 this is like, this is my nerd contribution. 453 00:21:54,420 --> 00:21:57,333 Gill's told you about hers. This is my nerd contribution. 454 00:21:58,230 --> 00:21:59,320 When I look at this work, 455 00:21:59,320 --> 00:22:02,347 I actually think of a line from "Jane Eyre," 456 00:22:03,250 --> 00:22:07,470 possibly my favourite novel, but that varies. 457 00:22:07,470 --> 00:22:09,680 Next week I'll have a different favourite 19th century novel, 458 00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:11,800 but today it's "Jane Eyre." 459 00:22:11,800 --> 00:22:16,364 And I look at this work and I hear these words 460 00:22:16,364 --> 00:22:19,290 from "Jane Eyre," which I'll read to you. 461 00:22:19,290 --> 00:22:21,210 And for anyone who hasn't read the book, 462 00:22:21,210 --> 00:22:23,710 this is kind of a point in the novel where Jane, 463 00:22:23,710 --> 00:22:25,530 who's obviously the main character, 464 00:22:25,530 --> 00:22:27,730 is remonstrating with Mr. Rochester, 465 00:22:27,730 --> 00:22:30,223 who's the kind of love interest, I suppose. 466 00:22:31,360 --> 00:22:34,870 She has just found out this kind of cataclysmic secret 467 00:22:34,870 --> 00:22:38,050 about Rochester, and it's a very satisfying bit of the book 468 00:22:38,050 --> 00:22:42,080 where she's giving him a piece of her mind 469 00:22:42,080 --> 00:22:43,700 and basically telling Mr. Rochester, 470 00:22:43,700 --> 00:22:47,220 you can shove your marriage proposal, 471 00:22:47,220 --> 00:22:49,340 you can finish that sentence if you like, 472 00:22:49,340 --> 00:22:52,210 and yeah, telling him what she really thinks. 473 00:22:52,210 --> 00:22:55,560 And Jane says to Rochester, hang on, 474 00:22:55,560 --> 00:22:59,983 da-da-da, just trying to find it, okay. 475 00:23:02,987 --> 00:23:07,310 "Do you think because I am poor, obscure, plain, 476 00:23:07,310 --> 00:23:10,360 and little, I am soulless and heartless? 477 00:23:10,360 --> 00:23:11,930 You think wrong. 478 00:23:11,930 --> 00:23:16,440 I have as much soul as you and full as much heart." 479 00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:19,320 And the reason why that makes me think of this work 480 00:23:19,320 --> 00:23:20,720 or the reason why that quote, I think, 481 00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:24,190 is so relevant to this painting 482 00:23:24,190 --> 00:23:28,070 is that you have so much more soul and so much more heart 483 00:23:28,070 --> 00:23:30,050 in this picture of the Brontes than it, 484 00:23:30,050 --> 00:23:33,400 than you would have had it been painted by, you know, 485 00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:35,860 a Royal Academy artist and had it, 486 00:23:35,860 --> 00:23:38,300 if it was big and if it wasn't damaged 487 00:23:38,300 --> 00:23:41,370 and if it was in a beautiful gold frame and so forth. 488 00:23:41,370 --> 00:23:43,740 There's this wonderful sort of immediacy 489 00:23:43,740 --> 00:23:47,620 and a sense of connection and a sense of intimacy 490 00:23:47,620 --> 00:23:51,590 about this work that you literally don't get from works 491 00:23:51,590 --> 00:23:55,770 which on the face of it are a lot more accomplished. 492 00:23:55,770 --> 00:23:57,220 And the other wonderful thing, of course, 493 00:23:57,220 --> 00:24:00,170 to bear in mind is, or to remember, is that it was painted 494 00:24:00,170 --> 00:24:03,530 by Charlotte and Emily and Anne's brother, 495 00:24:03,530 --> 00:24:06,260 so it's a very personal work. 496 00:24:06,260 --> 00:24:09,200 This is not an artist trying to make his sitters 497 00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:11,540 look something like other than they were. 498 00:24:11,540 --> 00:24:14,000 This is an artist painting his loved ones, 499 00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:15,500 his sisters, as he saw them. 500 00:24:15,500 --> 00:24:19,800 And so it's a really, a beautiful work for that reason, 501 00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:21,930 a really powerful work for that reason. 502 00:24:21,930 --> 00:24:23,080 And the other thing, of course, 503 00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:24,440 is that I think it tells you a lot 504 00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:26,950 about the sort of conditions 505 00:24:27,810 --> 00:24:30,200 that the Bronte sisters lived in and worked in. 506 00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:33,360 You know, they weren't women who had access 507 00:24:33,360 --> 00:24:36,930 to the sort of educations and so forth 508 00:24:36,930 --> 00:24:39,830 that other people might've had, 509 00:24:39,830 --> 00:24:42,370 yet even with their sort of, you know, 510 00:24:42,370 --> 00:24:46,910 relatively kind of limited means, 511 00:24:46,910 --> 00:24:49,060 they were still able to educate themselves 512 00:24:49,060 --> 00:24:50,700 to this incredible degree 513 00:24:50,700 --> 00:24:53,870 and come up with these fantastically 514 00:24:53,870 --> 00:24:57,520 imaginative fictional worlds. 515 00:24:57,520 --> 00:24:59,250 They were women who knew that, you know, 516 00:24:59,250 --> 00:25:02,040 they didn't have the money to attract a great husband, 517 00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:03,147 a rich husband, for example, 518 00:25:03,147 --> 00:25:05,920 and that they would have to make their living 519 00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:08,880 through their own creativity and through their own wit 520 00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:10,920 as well, a little bit like Nell Gwyn. 521 00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:13,340 And what I think you get from this portrait 522 00:25:13,340 --> 00:25:18,270 is also a great sort of sense of that adaptability 523 00:25:18,270 --> 00:25:20,080 and that sort of self-sustainability 524 00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:24,160 and that sort of drive that they must've had to overcome 525 00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:26,280 everything that they did in order to be able 526 00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:29,780 to publish their works and become the wonderful novelists 527 00:25:29,780 --> 00:25:31,263 and writers that they were. 528 00:25:32,150 --> 00:25:37,150 So they're my, they're the creativity side of today's story. 529 00:25:39,420 --> 00:25:42,220 And I think we can go onto the next one, thanks, Hector. 530 00:25:45,120 --> 00:25:46,313 So "Queen Elizabeth I," 531 00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:53,080 painted in 1575, around about 1575, 532 00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:58,820 and attributed in part to an artist named Nicholas Hilliard, 533 00:25:58,820 --> 00:26:03,370 who was a court painter in the Elizabethan era. 534 00:26:03,370 --> 00:26:07,720 He's known in particular for producing a lot of miniatures, 535 00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:10,160 very detailed miniatures of Elizabeth I, 536 00:26:11,140 --> 00:26:14,790 which were kept and carried by her supporters 537 00:26:14,790 --> 00:26:18,033 as a kind of a sign of allegiance to her. 538 00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:21,660 And I've included "Queen Elizabeth I" 539 00:26:21,660 --> 00:26:23,887 partly because it's an absolutely fabulous portrait, 540 00:26:23,887 --> 00:26:28,650 but I think it's also a really fabulous image of authority, 541 00:26:28,650 --> 00:26:31,250 which is not something, I suppose, 542 00:26:31,250 --> 00:26:33,220 we associate with portraits of women, 543 00:26:33,220 --> 00:26:36,200 particularly not from the 16th century. 544 00:26:36,200 --> 00:26:39,010 And once again, she's a bit like the Brontes in that you, 545 00:26:39,010 --> 00:26:41,940 there's so much you can say about this work 546 00:26:41,940 --> 00:26:46,030 just from the nature of its execution. 547 00:26:46,030 --> 00:26:48,210 But I think in sort of a, 548 00:26:48,210 --> 00:26:52,640 to do a kind of an iconographical reading of it, 549 00:26:54,210 --> 00:26:57,150 it's really important to sort of notice 550 00:26:57,150 --> 00:26:59,260 some of the symbolism 551 00:26:59,260 --> 00:27:02,170 and some of the sort of characteristics 552 00:27:02,170 --> 00:27:06,010 that the artist has used to convey her image. 553 00:27:06,010 --> 00:27:07,980 And if you zoom in on the portrait, 554 00:27:07,980 --> 00:27:10,030 which I think we can do, can't we? 555 00:27:10,030 --> 00:27:11,620 Yeah, great. Thanks, Hector. 556 00:27:11,620 --> 00:27:16,620 So that's a detail of the sort of centre of the composition. 557 00:27:17,050 --> 00:27:20,550 Firstly, the work is nicknamed the "Phoenix" portrait, 558 00:27:20,550 --> 00:27:23,880 and you can see just above Queen Elizabeth's hand, 559 00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:27,050 there's a sort of a red-and-gold jewel 560 00:27:27,050 --> 00:27:29,280 in the shape of the phoenix. 561 00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:31,360 And also if you look at very closely 562 00:27:31,360 --> 00:27:35,040 at that sort of embroidered gold pattern on her gown, 563 00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:38,320 you can see that that is in the shape of a phoenix as well. 564 00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:40,950 So you've got the leaves or what look like leaves 565 00:27:40,950 --> 00:27:44,330 actually forming the shape of the tail and the wings 566 00:27:44,330 --> 00:27:47,790 and the sort of other piece of foliage 567 00:27:47,790 --> 00:27:52,340 sort of vaguely evoking the phoenix's head. 568 00:27:52,340 --> 00:27:53,330 And the phoenix, of course, 569 00:27:53,330 --> 00:27:57,953 was a sign of rebirth and regeneration. 570 00:27:58,930 --> 00:28:01,310 The other really amazing feature 571 00:28:01,310 --> 00:28:04,423 about this portrait is all of those pearls. 572 00:28:05,290 --> 00:28:09,670 I don't know how many pearls are actually in this portrait. 573 00:28:09,670 --> 00:28:11,360 I'm gonna have to go up and count them 574 00:28:11,360 --> 00:28:12,570 because it's quite extraordinary. 575 00:28:12,570 --> 00:28:17,060 There are hundreds of these perfectly delineated pearls 576 00:28:17,060 --> 00:28:20,870 in this work, and they look three-dimensional, 577 00:28:20,870 --> 00:28:22,770 and the whole thing just glows. 578 00:28:22,770 --> 00:28:25,387 It's so extraordinarily painted. 579 00:28:25,387 --> 00:28:29,040 And in fact, it glows and looks fresher 580 00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:32,520 than works in the exhibition which are much, much younger 581 00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:35,010 than this particular painting. 582 00:28:35,010 --> 00:28:39,990 But the pearls are particularly pertinent as well. 583 00:28:39,990 --> 00:28:42,710 As I mentioned, I think in relation to Nell Gwyn, 584 00:28:42,710 --> 00:28:47,230 pearls were a symbol of virginity and purity, 585 00:28:47,230 --> 00:28:49,670 and this work, painted in the 1570s, 586 00:28:49,670 --> 00:28:51,220 by which time Queen Elizabeth I 587 00:28:51,220 --> 00:28:54,320 would've been in her 40s, 588 00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:57,080 all sort of talk of her finding a husband 589 00:28:57,080 --> 00:28:58,680 and having an heir, et cetera, 590 00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:01,530 has sort of gone out the window, 591 00:29:01,530 --> 00:29:04,150 and she declares herself to be the mother of her people, 592 00:29:04,150 --> 00:29:07,760 devoted to her people, and the Virgin Queen. 593 00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:11,010 And very interestingly at that point, 594 00:29:11,010 --> 00:29:15,980 that's when artists started appropriating a lot of symbols 595 00:29:15,980 --> 00:29:18,380 and imagery that would ordinarily have been used 596 00:29:18,380 --> 00:29:20,930 for depictions of the Virgin Mary 597 00:29:20,930 --> 00:29:22,960 and applying them to the Virgin Queen, 598 00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:26,050 and the pearls are a really sort of fantastic example 599 00:29:26,050 --> 00:29:27,710 of that, I think. 600 00:29:27,710 --> 00:29:29,320 And of course the other thing 601 00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:32,090 that you can see very obviously in this detail 602 00:29:32,090 --> 00:29:35,600 is the Tudor rose that she's holding 603 00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:40,200 and also the sort of brooch just below her neck, 604 00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:41,860 which is also in the form of a rose, 605 00:29:41,860 --> 00:29:45,713 that, of course, being the symbol of the House of Tudor. 606 00:29:46,740 --> 00:29:50,430 Elizabeth I, of course, was Henry VIII's daughter. 607 00:29:50,430 --> 00:29:54,990 So it's a wonderfully defiant picture. 608 00:29:54,990 --> 00:29:57,080 It's a wonderfully authoritative picture. 609 00:29:57,080 --> 00:29:59,780 And if you bear in mind that this is made 610 00:29:59,780 --> 00:30:02,430 only a few years after Elizabeth I 611 00:30:02,430 --> 00:30:05,670 had been officially excommunicated by the pope, 612 00:30:05,670 --> 00:30:07,700 which meant that the pope had pretty much 613 00:30:07,700 --> 00:30:11,260 called on all good Catholics to condemn her as a heretic 614 00:30:11,260 --> 00:30:14,350 and plot against her and all of these sorts of things, 615 00:30:14,350 --> 00:30:18,150 the fact that she sees, she's perfectly confident 616 00:30:18,150 --> 00:30:20,320 in her own authority and perfectly fine 617 00:30:20,320 --> 00:30:23,150 with showing herself as this authoritative, 618 00:30:23,150 --> 00:30:26,580 powerful, virginal woman, I think it's, 619 00:30:26,580 --> 00:30:28,400 it makes it a really defiant portrait. 620 00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:32,210 It's really powerful, it's really strong, and yeah, 621 00:30:32,210 --> 00:30:34,630 easily one of the greatest things in the exhibition. 622 00:30:34,630 --> 00:30:36,330 It's a real treat to have it here. 623 00:30:37,570 --> 00:30:39,800 Have we had enough of Elizabeth I? 624 00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:40,781 - Yeah. 625 00:30:40,781 --> 00:30:42,030 (Jo laughing) 626 00:30:42,030 --> 00:30:44,543 We might move on to the next slide. Thanks, Hector. 627 00:30:45,650 --> 00:30:48,060 Oh God, this is another really fantastic one. 628 00:30:48,060 --> 00:30:51,793 And I'm probably, I hope I'm not going over time, so. 629 00:30:52,897 --> 00:30:53,730 - [Assistant] One. 630 00:30:53,730 --> 00:30:56,380 - One o'clock, okay, we've still got time. 631 00:30:56,380 --> 00:30:59,030 One of the sections of the exhibition 632 00:30:59,030 --> 00:31:00,883 is all on self-portraiture, 633 00:31:01,750 --> 00:31:04,490 a really fantastic section of the show. 634 00:31:04,490 --> 00:31:05,731 I mean, they're all pretty great, 635 00:31:05,731 --> 00:31:08,530 but the self-portraits I think are particularly fantastic. 636 00:31:08,530 --> 00:31:11,330 It's got everything from a beautiful self-portrait 637 00:31:11,330 --> 00:31:15,590 by Sir Anthony van Dyck which was painted about 1640 638 00:31:15,590 --> 00:31:18,780 right up until, you know, the early 2000s. 639 00:31:18,780 --> 00:31:21,240 There's a death mask by Tracey Emin, 640 00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:22,620 which is really wonderful, 641 00:31:22,620 --> 00:31:25,220 and also this fantastic portrait, self-portrait 642 00:31:25,220 --> 00:31:29,200 in the form of a map by the British artist Grayson Perry, 643 00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:33,010 which is, you know, so you get this incredible span 644 00:31:33,010 --> 00:31:36,730 of self-portraiture and this incredible span 645 00:31:36,730 --> 00:31:40,110 of notions about how to represent the self. 646 00:31:40,110 --> 00:31:42,400 This particular work is by, 647 00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:46,030 a self-portrait by an artist named Angelica Kauffmann. 648 00:31:46,030 --> 00:31:51,030 She's Swiss by birth. She was born in Switzerland in 1741. 649 00:31:51,060 --> 00:31:54,370 Luckily for Angelica, her dad was an artist 650 00:31:54,370 --> 00:31:57,450 who encouraged her in that pursuit. 651 00:31:57,450 --> 00:31:59,793 She went to Italy with her father, 652 00:32:00,740 --> 00:32:04,070 trained in painting with him in Italy, 653 00:32:04,070 --> 00:32:05,240 and it was while she was in Italy 654 00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:07,730 that she became very much influenced 655 00:32:07,730 --> 00:32:09,670 by the sort of neoclassical style, 656 00:32:09,670 --> 00:32:13,220 which I think you can very much see in this self-portrait. 657 00:32:13,220 --> 00:32:18,220 She's wearing that very sort of Grecian classical dress. 658 00:32:18,260 --> 00:32:20,480 And she made lots of self-portraits, 659 00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:22,290 and in almost all of them, 660 00:32:22,290 --> 00:32:26,040 she very much sort of invokes the muse, 661 00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:28,860 the classical appearance and depicts herself 662 00:32:28,860 --> 00:32:32,063 in this sort of Grecian or classical gown. 663 00:32:33,340 --> 00:32:38,340 She started working in England, in London, in about 1766 664 00:32:39,690 --> 00:32:42,430 after she'd been in Italy and finished her training. 665 00:32:42,430 --> 00:32:44,830 And she was a specialist in portraiture, 666 00:32:44,830 --> 00:32:46,230 as you can probably tell, 667 00:32:46,230 --> 00:32:49,960 and also in sort of neoclassical history painting. 668 00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:52,660 And two years after she moved to London, 669 00:32:52,660 --> 00:32:56,350 she and an artist named Mary Moser 670 00:32:56,350 --> 00:33:00,220 became the only two female founding members 671 00:33:00,220 --> 00:33:02,130 of the Royal Academy. 672 00:33:02,130 --> 00:33:04,920 The Royal Academy was established in 1768 673 00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:06,970 after a number of leading artists 674 00:33:06,970 --> 00:33:08,983 had petitioned King George III 675 00:33:09,941 --> 00:33:13,870 asking him to establish a national art training school 676 00:33:13,870 --> 00:33:16,623 that had sort of Royal endorsement. 677 00:33:17,790 --> 00:33:20,978 And while it might be surprising to learn, 678 00:33:20,978 --> 00:33:23,010 (laughs) as I was surprised to learn, 679 00:33:23,010 --> 00:33:26,060 that there were two women admitted as founding members 680 00:33:26,060 --> 00:33:28,900 of the Royal Academy in the 1760s. 681 00:33:28,900 --> 00:33:30,240 When you look into it further, 682 00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:33,740 you realise that it's possible to be deceived into thinking 683 00:33:33,740 --> 00:33:35,970 that their admittance to the Royal Academy 684 00:33:37,253 --> 00:33:41,070 was a reflection of Kauffmann and Moser's status, 685 00:33:41,070 --> 00:33:43,523 because unfortunately, that's not the case. 686 00:33:45,383 --> 00:33:46,813 Though they were admitted to the Royal Academy, 687 00:33:46,813 --> 00:33:50,480 they were very much not on an equal footing 688 00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:53,950 with their male peers and male counterparts. 689 00:33:53,950 --> 00:33:56,630 And I'd argue that that's something that's, 690 00:33:56,630 --> 00:33:58,810 it's alluded to not only in this work 691 00:33:58,810 --> 00:34:01,030 but in the number of other self-portraits 692 00:34:01,030 --> 00:34:04,160 that Angelica Kauffmann made. 693 00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:07,150 In itself, the fact that Kauffmann 694 00:34:07,150 --> 00:34:10,840 painted self-portraits is very telling. 695 00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:14,640 So there's this long-held idea, of course, that artists, 696 00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:16,740 or one of the reasons why artists paint 697 00:34:16,740 --> 00:34:19,620 or create self-portraits is that artists 698 00:34:19,620 --> 00:34:23,770 make very reliable models, and you're always dependable 699 00:34:23,770 --> 00:34:27,920 and reliable and always available to yourself. 700 00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:32,240 And I think that's probably even more the case 701 00:34:32,240 --> 00:34:34,760 when you're talking about someone like Angelica Kauffmann 702 00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:37,010 and a number of her contemporaries, 703 00:34:37,010 --> 00:34:39,480 because her self-portraits are actually, 704 00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:42,330 to me, I think, a signal that as a woman, 705 00:34:42,330 --> 00:34:45,040 she was at a major disadvantage. 706 00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:47,660 And even though she was admitted to the Royal Academy 707 00:34:47,660 --> 00:34:51,390 in 1768, she wouldn't have had the same access 708 00:34:51,390 --> 00:34:54,960 as her male artists, male counterparts, 709 00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:57,210 to things like education and training 710 00:34:57,210 --> 00:35:00,300 and to fundamental requirements of art training, 711 00:35:00,300 --> 00:35:05,300 such as to nude live models, male models in particular, 712 00:35:06,360 --> 00:35:08,690 and nor would it have been considered appropriate 713 00:35:08,690 --> 00:35:13,070 for Angelica and Mary Moser to be alone in a room 714 00:35:13,070 --> 00:35:17,470 with a male sitter or in a studio with male artists. 715 00:35:17,470 --> 00:35:20,530 And that's, I think, another thing to bear in mind 716 00:35:20,530 --> 00:35:23,940 about this portrait, even though it's made a little bit 717 00:35:23,940 --> 00:35:28,020 after her admittance to the Royal Academy. 718 00:35:28,020 --> 00:35:32,500 That sort of very modest gesture that she's making 719 00:35:32,500 --> 00:35:35,930 by sort of holding her hand in front of her chest there, 720 00:35:35,930 --> 00:35:39,460 I think is, to me, seems like a reference. 721 00:35:39,460 --> 00:35:41,710 She's sort of reinforcing her femininity 722 00:35:41,710 --> 00:35:44,490 and her modesty because being a woman 723 00:35:44,490 --> 00:35:47,970 who was kind of at play in a man's world, 724 00:35:47,970 --> 00:35:51,142 she was automatically subject to all sorts of allegations 725 00:35:51,142 --> 00:35:55,460 or aspersions about her morality 726 00:35:55,460 --> 00:35:57,270 and her virtue and all of that sort of thing. 727 00:35:57,270 --> 00:35:58,290 So I think in this work, 728 00:35:58,290 --> 00:36:02,450 she's asserting her morality and her virtue 729 00:36:02,450 --> 00:36:05,710 and at the same time issuing a bit of a, you know, 730 00:36:05,710 --> 00:36:09,680 a kind of a in your face to the people, to her detractors, 731 00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:12,350 the people who assumed that because she was a woman 732 00:36:12,350 --> 00:36:14,990 in a man's world that she was somehow 733 00:36:14,990 --> 00:36:18,910 not all she purported to be or appeared to be. 734 00:36:18,910 --> 00:36:21,230 And then of course the other wonderful thing about this work 735 00:36:21,230 --> 00:36:24,590 is it's a very beautiful statement 736 00:36:24,590 --> 00:36:28,190 about her sense of identity as an artist. 737 00:36:28,190 --> 00:36:32,900 I think I've included Angelica as an example of strength. 738 00:36:32,900 --> 00:36:35,020 Yeah, she's my strength example. 739 00:36:35,020 --> 00:36:39,280 So she's someone who is very assured of herself 740 00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:42,340 and very confident in her identity as an artist, 741 00:36:42,340 --> 00:36:46,440 which is one of the things that's most striking, 742 00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:47,940 not just about this self-portrait, 743 00:36:47,940 --> 00:36:51,680 but the other self-portraits that she made. 744 00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:55,040 And there's also some really sort of interesting 745 00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:58,160 other connections to other works in the exhibition 746 00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:01,590 that this particular portrait points to. 747 00:37:01,590 --> 00:37:06,590 So even though Angelica and Mary were both admitted 748 00:37:06,950 --> 00:37:10,050 into the Royal Academy in 1768, 749 00:37:10,050 --> 00:37:13,560 it was almost another 170 years 750 00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:17,150 before the third female member of the Royal Academy, 751 00:37:17,150 --> 00:37:20,460 an artist named Dame Laura Knight was admitted. 752 00:37:20,460 --> 00:37:24,270 She was admitted in 1935 or '36, I think. 753 00:37:24,270 --> 00:37:27,060 So understandably the Royal Academy 754 00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:33,760 wasn't an institution that feminists had a lot of time for, 755 00:37:34,210 --> 00:37:37,100 so much so that in the early 20th century, 756 00:37:37,100 --> 00:37:39,790 in 1914, the Royal Academy became, 757 00:37:39,790 --> 00:37:41,630 or the Royal Academy's sort of annual exhibition 758 00:37:41,630 --> 00:37:44,803 became the target of some militant suffragettes. 759 00:37:45,947 --> 00:37:48,530 So fed up were they 760 00:37:48,530 --> 00:37:53,480 with the Royal Academy's attitudes to women 761 00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:56,630 that a couple of ladies decided to attack paintings 762 00:37:56,630 --> 00:38:00,930 that were on exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1914, 763 00:38:00,930 --> 00:38:04,440 including a lady named Mary Woods who took to a painting 764 00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:08,630 of the novelist Henry James with a meat cleaver. 765 00:38:08,630 --> 00:38:10,530 It's a painting of Henry James 766 00:38:10,530 --> 00:38:12,740 by a very distinguished American-born artist 767 00:38:12,740 --> 00:38:14,660 named John Singer Sargent, 768 00:38:14,660 --> 00:38:17,442 and of course it was an outrage. 769 00:38:17,442 --> 00:38:19,760 It was reported on in the newspapers. 770 00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:21,730 People were, seemed to be more outraged 771 00:38:21,730 --> 00:38:23,030 not about the damage to the painting 772 00:38:23,030 --> 00:38:25,540 but by the fact that the damage to the painting 773 00:38:25,540 --> 00:38:30,080 was done by a little old lady with a meat cleaver. (laughs) 774 00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:35,080 Anyway, but the painting of James was taken off display. 775 00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:38,630 It was taken back to Sargent's studio. 776 00:38:38,630 --> 00:38:41,890 He patched it up, it went back on exhibition, 777 00:38:41,890 --> 00:38:44,570 and that work, the painting of Henry James 778 00:38:44,570 --> 00:38:46,730 was later acquired by the National Portrait Gallery 779 00:38:46,730 --> 00:38:50,650 and is also on display in "Shakespeare to Winehouse." 780 00:38:50,650 --> 00:38:53,810 So if you do manage to make it to Canberra and see the show, 781 00:38:53,810 --> 00:38:55,650 keep an eye out for the picture of Henry James 782 00:38:55,650 --> 00:38:59,090 and see if you can see the damage 783 00:38:59,090 --> 00:39:01,840 that was done by Mrs. Woods in 1914. 784 00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:04,740 You're apparently still able to discern 785 00:39:04,740 --> 00:39:08,150 exactly where she chopped into the canvas 786 00:39:08,150 --> 00:39:09,250 with the meat cleaver. 787 00:39:11,240 --> 00:39:12,640 Next slide, I think, Hector. 788 00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:20,340 Emma Hamilton, she's a little bit like Nell Gwyn, 789 00:39:20,340 --> 00:39:22,500 I guess, in that she's someone, 790 00:39:22,500 --> 00:39:25,140 if you see her referred to or described, 791 00:39:25,140 --> 00:39:27,500 she's often just described 792 00:39:27,500 --> 00:39:32,500 as the mistress of Lord Horatio Nelson, the sort of, 793 00:39:33,280 --> 00:39:37,750 obviously the incredible military hero of the, 794 00:39:37,750 --> 00:39:42,750 the most famous military hero of early 19th century Britain, 795 00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:44,850 but a little bit like Nell as well, 796 00:39:44,850 --> 00:39:46,460 there's a hill of a lot more 797 00:39:46,460 --> 00:39:50,260 to Emma Hamilton than meets the eye. 798 00:39:50,260 --> 00:39:51,740 And there's certainly a lot more to her 799 00:39:51,740 --> 00:39:56,410 than having just been Horatio Nelson's girlfriend. 800 00:39:56,410 --> 00:39:58,180 She's someone, also like Nell, 801 00:39:58,180 --> 00:40:01,690 who's very much a kind of a rags-to-riches story, I suppose. 802 00:40:01,690 --> 00:40:05,770 She's very much a, she was very much a self-made woman. 803 00:40:05,770 --> 00:40:08,490 She was a blacksmith's daughter. 804 00:40:08,490 --> 00:40:13,260 She was born in Cheshire into absolute object poverty 805 00:40:13,260 --> 00:40:17,310 but nevertheless managed to rise above that 806 00:40:17,310 --> 00:40:19,930 and make her way in London society 807 00:40:19,930 --> 00:40:22,240 and eventually become the wife 808 00:40:22,240 --> 00:40:24,110 of a man named Sir William Hamilton, 809 00:40:24,110 --> 00:40:27,840 who was a British ambassador to Naples 810 00:40:28,690 --> 00:40:31,240 at the end of the 18th and early 19th century. 811 00:40:31,240 --> 00:40:34,000 And it was through her husband, William Hamilton, 812 00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:36,000 that she met Nelson. 813 00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:39,393 But she's someone who is also very, 814 00:40:40,490 --> 00:40:44,020 known as the sort of favourite model and a muse 815 00:40:44,020 --> 00:40:45,820 of an artist named George Romney, 816 00:40:45,820 --> 00:40:48,730 who is the creator of this work. 817 00:40:48,730 --> 00:40:50,290 Incidentally, she's also someone 818 00:40:50,290 --> 00:40:54,600 who was a subject of Angelica Kauffmann's. 819 00:40:54,600 --> 00:40:56,600 The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York's 820 00:40:56,600 --> 00:41:01,600 got a beautiful drawing of Emma by Angelica. 821 00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:05,470 But yeah, she's someone who very much 822 00:41:05,470 --> 00:41:08,350 kind of made her own way, and part of the way 823 00:41:08,350 --> 00:41:10,970 that she did that was through her association 824 00:41:10,970 --> 00:41:15,610 with men like George Romney, who painted her obsessively. 825 00:41:15,610 --> 00:41:19,930 He's made many, many portraits of Emma Hamilton. 826 00:41:19,930 --> 00:41:22,110 And she also made a name for herself 827 00:41:22,110 --> 00:41:26,700 as a kind of a early form of performance artist in a way. 828 00:41:26,700 --> 00:41:31,290 She developed this series of performances called "Attitudes" 829 00:41:31,290 --> 00:41:34,700 wherein she would sort of invoke 830 00:41:34,700 --> 00:41:38,800 and portray various different sort of goddesses 831 00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:42,010 and other stories from mythology. 832 00:41:42,010 --> 00:41:45,780 And so she was a bit of a kind of a performance sensation 833 00:41:45,780 --> 00:41:49,400 as well as an art sensation as well. 834 00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:50,680 And very significant also, 835 00:41:50,680 --> 00:41:52,850 because as you can see from this portrait, 836 00:41:52,850 --> 00:41:56,320 she wasn't the shy, retiring type 837 00:41:56,320 --> 00:42:00,380 and quite unusual in that when you see portraits 838 00:42:00,380 --> 00:42:02,480 of Emma Hamilton and Romney, of course, 839 00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:05,180 wasn't the only one who painted her, 840 00:42:05,180 --> 00:42:07,760 she's very much looking you straight in the eye. 841 00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:11,180 She's not sort of shying away from the fact 842 00:42:11,180 --> 00:42:13,580 that she's in the public eye and not shying away 843 00:42:13,580 --> 00:42:17,880 from the notoriety that she would subsequently earn 844 00:42:18,874 --> 00:42:20,713 as Nelson's mistress. 845 00:42:24,750 --> 00:42:26,050 Next one, I think, Hector. 846 00:42:29,200 --> 00:42:31,170 Ah, "Radclyffe Hall." 847 00:42:31,170 --> 00:42:36,170 So Radclyffe Hall is my example of courage. 848 00:42:36,730 --> 00:42:38,960 She is a writer, and I just sort of, 849 00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:43,160 before I go any further, I just sort of wanna make clear 850 00:42:43,160 --> 00:42:48,160 that I'll refer to Radclyffe using pronouns she and her. 851 00:42:49,050 --> 00:42:50,760 There's some sort of question now 852 00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:53,310 about whether had there been an awareness 853 00:42:53,310 --> 00:42:56,620 of transgender identity when she was alive, 854 00:42:56,620 --> 00:43:00,980 she might've identified as a transgender person. 855 00:43:00,980 --> 00:43:03,770 But because historians and so forth 856 00:43:03,770 --> 00:43:05,990 all refer to her as she and her, 857 00:43:05,990 --> 00:43:09,163 I'll use that terminology as well in discussing her. 858 00:43:10,650 --> 00:43:14,420 She was born in Bournemouth in 1880. 859 00:43:14,420 --> 00:43:18,660 Her birth name was Marguerite Antonia Radclyffe Hall, 860 00:43:18,660 --> 00:43:21,420 born into a relatively wealthy family, 861 00:43:21,420 --> 00:43:24,160 although her parents divorced 862 00:43:24,160 --> 00:43:26,160 when she was only three years old. 863 00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:29,070 Her mother remarried when she was, 864 00:43:29,070 --> 00:43:33,350 when Radclyffe was 10, and though she was sent 865 00:43:33,350 --> 00:43:35,230 to sort of fashionable schools 866 00:43:35,230 --> 00:43:37,960 and would outwardly have been, 867 00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:41,190 seemed to be a very kind of well-to-do person, 868 00:43:41,190 --> 00:43:44,710 she later said that her childhood was extremely unhappy. 869 00:43:44,710 --> 00:43:47,120 Her mother, for example, is supposedly, 870 00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:48,490 is believed to have said to her 871 00:43:48,490 --> 00:43:51,210 that she regretted having her. 872 00:43:51,210 --> 00:43:54,340 Her stepfather wasn't a particularly sympathetic 873 00:43:54,340 --> 00:43:56,320 or appealing character. 874 00:43:56,320 --> 00:43:59,410 So she was very lucky, I think, when she was 21 875 00:43:59,410 --> 00:44:02,540 to come into a very significant amount of money 876 00:44:02,540 --> 00:44:07,010 that had been held for her in trust by her grandfather. 877 00:44:07,010 --> 00:44:10,010 And when she came into that amount of money, of course, 878 00:44:10,010 --> 00:44:12,890 it meant that she didn't have to worry 879 00:44:12,890 --> 00:44:14,250 about how to earn a living, 880 00:44:14,250 --> 00:44:18,800 which for women of her class in the early 20th century 881 00:44:18,800 --> 00:44:22,330 generally meant having to find a husband to support her. 882 00:44:22,330 --> 00:44:24,080 But spared that fate, 883 00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:28,713 Radclyffe Hall decided to become a writer. 884 00:44:29,810 --> 00:44:34,810 When she was in her early 20s, 20s and early 30s, 885 00:44:35,070 --> 00:44:39,040 she published books of poetry, 886 00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:43,920 and then she went on to writing seven novels. 887 00:44:43,920 --> 00:44:45,360 And the fifth of her novels, 888 00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:48,080 a book called "The Well of Loneliness" 889 00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:50,510 is probably the work or the novel 890 00:44:50,510 --> 00:44:53,423 for which Radclyffe Hall is best known. 891 00:44:54,350 --> 00:44:58,160 Now, the book was, it's a semi-biographical novel 892 00:44:58,160 --> 00:45:01,420 about the relationship between the book's central character, 893 00:45:01,420 --> 00:45:04,590 a young woman who wishes to be seen as a man 894 00:45:04,590 --> 00:45:06,950 and who calls herself Stephen, 895 00:45:06,950 --> 00:45:10,960 and Stephen's older, married female lover, 896 00:45:10,960 --> 00:45:15,710 so a very, very explicit and unashamed representation 897 00:45:17,731 --> 00:45:20,750 of female love and a lesbian relationship. 898 00:45:20,750 --> 00:45:24,340 And there are very strong parallels between Stephen's story, 899 00:45:24,340 --> 00:45:25,710 the story of the central character 900 00:45:25,710 --> 00:45:30,110 in "The Well of Loneliness," and Hall's own life. 901 00:45:30,110 --> 00:45:35,060 She called herself John, for example, and her pen name, 902 00:45:35,060 --> 00:45:37,742 Radclyffe Hall, is not her birth name. 903 00:45:37,742 --> 00:45:39,490 Radclyffe was actually her father's name. 904 00:45:39,490 --> 00:45:41,860 So she adopted a masculine identity, 905 00:45:41,860 --> 00:45:44,290 and it was that masculine name 906 00:45:44,290 --> 00:45:46,600 under which all of her works were published. 907 00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:49,610 And as you can see above from this portrait 908 00:45:49,610 --> 00:45:54,130 painted by an artist named Charles Buchel in about 1918, 909 00:45:54,130 --> 00:45:56,300 Radclyffe Hall wore men's clothes 910 00:45:56,300 --> 00:46:00,140 and very much adopted a masculine persona, 911 00:46:00,140 --> 00:46:03,140 the very short hair, she was always photographed 912 00:46:03,140 --> 00:46:05,790 smoking pipes or smoking cigars, 913 00:46:05,790 --> 00:46:09,690 wearing ties and cravats and also wearing a monocle, 914 00:46:09,690 --> 00:46:12,490 as you can see in this portrait. 915 00:46:12,490 --> 00:46:13,970 We might have a look at that detail now, 916 00:46:13,970 --> 00:46:15,270 Hector, if you don't mind, 917 00:46:18,380 --> 00:46:19,590 which we put in for Gill's sake. 918 00:46:19,590 --> 00:46:22,160 She says this is the best hand in the exhibition, 919 00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:23,523 and it is pretty beautiful. 920 00:46:25,340 --> 00:46:27,070 So, yeah, and there are, you know, 921 00:46:27,070 --> 00:46:29,560 various other parallels between the characters 922 00:46:29,560 --> 00:46:32,903 in "The Well of Loneliness" and Radclyffe Hall herself. 923 00:46:34,470 --> 00:46:39,130 Radclyffe Hall described herself as, 924 00:46:39,130 --> 00:46:42,770 described herself as being someone, a man in a woman's body. 925 00:46:42,770 --> 00:46:47,770 And she was very much in tune with theories 926 00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:50,330 about sexuality and sexual identity 927 00:46:50,330 --> 00:46:53,490 that were current in the early 20th century 928 00:46:53,490 --> 00:46:57,530 and which held that it was possible for gender identity 929 00:46:57,530 --> 00:47:02,530 and gender roles to be inverted or reversed for some people. 930 00:47:03,330 --> 00:47:06,370 So Hall also always identified 931 00:47:06,370 --> 00:47:08,380 with that sort of way of thinking. 932 00:47:08,380 --> 00:47:11,400 She very much saw herself as an outsider 933 00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:14,180 and, indeed, said that she wrote books like, 934 00:47:14,180 --> 00:47:15,620 and it's not just "The Well of Loneliness," 935 00:47:15,620 --> 00:47:18,270 I think all of her novels sort of deal with this question, 936 00:47:18,270 --> 00:47:20,710 but she did very much say that "The Well of Loneliness" 937 00:47:20,710 --> 00:47:22,897 was something that she wrote, and I quote here, 938 00:47:22,897 --> 00:47:25,220 "To put my pen at the service 939 00:47:25,220 --> 00:47:28,227 of some of the most misunderstood people in the world." 940 00:47:29,470 --> 00:47:31,680 And while this particular portrait was painted 941 00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:35,650 10 years before "The Well of Loneliness" was published, 942 00:47:35,650 --> 00:47:37,180 it's a really powerful statement, 943 00:47:37,180 --> 00:47:40,480 I think, about Radclyffe Hall's courage. 944 00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:41,630 She wasn't someone 945 00:47:41,630 --> 00:47:44,450 who was going to be shamed into conformity. 946 00:47:44,450 --> 00:47:47,150 She was someone who was very upfront about her sexuality 947 00:47:47,150 --> 00:47:51,310 and identity and had the courage to be very open 948 00:47:51,310 --> 00:47:55,690 about her two long-term intimate relationships with women, 949 00:47:55,690 --> 00:47:58,410 the first with a lady named Mabel Batten, 950 00:47:58,410 --> 00:48:00,690 and the second following Mabel's death 951 00:48:00,690 --> 00:48:02,680 with Lady Una Troubridge, 952 00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:05,820 who she was with for the rest of her life. 953 00:48:05,820 --> 00:48:10,470 Radclyffe Hall died in 1943, and Lady Troubridge 954 00:48:10,470 --> 00:48:13,950 later donated this particular picture to NPG London 955 00:48:13,950 --> 00:48:17,283 after her death, or before her death in the 1960s. 956 00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:22,600 So Radclyffe Hall, very much someone who had the courage 957 00:48:22,600 --> 00:48:26,520 to stand up to the outrage that was directed at her 958 00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:29,090 throughout her life but in particular 959 00:48:29,090 --> 00:48:31,730 after "The Well of Loneliness" was published. 960 00:48:31,730 --> 00:48:33,020 So it was published in 1928 961 00:48:33,020 --> 00:48:37,260 and then almost immediately declared to be obscene 962 00:48:37,260 --> 00:48:41,890 and was banned from publication and, you know, 963 00:48:41,890 --> 00:48:44,370 immoral and obscene and all of this sort of stuff, 964 00:48:44,370 --> 00:48:47,270 a bad influence on society, et cetera, et cetera. 965 00:48:47,270 --> 00:48:49,520 So the book was taken out of publication 966 00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:51,290 and taken out of circulation 967 00:48:51,290 --> 00:48:54,710 and wasn't published finally until 1949, 968 00:48:54,710 --> 00:48:58,863 which is six years after Radclyffe Hall had passed away. 969 00:49:00,450 --> 00:49:01,600 Next one, thanks, Hector. 970 00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:03,343 I think this is the last one, so. 971 00:49:06,270 --> 00:49:08,808 And the most recent work, 972 00:49:08,808 --> 00:49:10,730 not in, just in today's presentation, 973 00:49:10,730 --> 00:49:12,890 but the most recent work in the exhibition 974 00:49:12,890 --> 00:49:16,310 is an absolutely stunning photograph of Malala Yousafzai 975 00:49:16,310 --> 00:49:19,783 by an Iranian-born artist named Shirin Neshat. 976 00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:24,760 For those of you who've seen the exhibition, 977 00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:27,997 this photograph is, she's huge, 978 00:49:27,997 --> 00:49:29,780 (laughs) and it's incredibly powerful. 979 00:49:29,780 --> 00:49:33,430 You sort of walk around the corner and you just see Malala, 980 00:49:33,430 --> 00:49:35,730 and it's, she's really quite glorious. 981 00:49:35,730 --> 00:49:38,420 It's a really spectacular picture, 982 00:49:38,420 --> 00:49:43,420 a work which was commissioned by NPG London in 2018. 983 00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:46,910 And I think, you know, she's a good endpoint, 984 00:49:46,910 --> 00:49:49,220 not just for the exhibition, but for this presentation, 985 00:49:49,220 --> 00:49:52,030 because Malala is someone who exemplifies 986 00:49:52,030 --> 00:49:53,610 all of those characteristics 987 00:49:53,610 --> 00:49:55,970 that I've been speaking about so far. 988 00:49:55,970 --> 00:49:57,970 I've included her here as an example of, 989 00:49:57,970 --> 00:50:02,580 or as an exemplar of wisdom, but she's also courageous. 990 00:50:02,580 --> 00:50:05,630 She's also authoritative. She's also creative. 991 00:50:05,630 --> 00:50:08,460 She's everything, she's got everything 992 00:50:08,460 --> 00:50:11,650 that all of the other subjects have in spades, 993 00:50:11,650 --> 00:50:15,790 all combined in this one extraordinary individual. 994 00:50:15,790 --> 00:50:17,700 We could talk for hours, I think, 995 00:50:17,700 --> 00:50:19,520 about Malala and about this work. 996 00:50:19,520 --> 00:50:20,610 But the thing that I really want 997 00:50:20,610 --> 00:50:23,883 to sort of draw your attention to is the way, 998 00:50:23,883 --> 00:50:25,410 and you can probably see it from the slide here, 999 00:50:25,410 --> 00:50:28,080 the way that she has, you can see that there's calligraphy 1000 00:50:28,080 --> 00:50:29,810 or text sort of written across her face. 1001 00:50:29,810 --> 00:50:30,880 Oh, thanks, Hector, that's better. 1002 00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:32,980 I'd forgotten we had a detail of this one. 1003 00:50:33,820 --> 00:50:38,820 And that text is a transcription of a translation 1004 00:50:40,440 --> 00:50:44,570 of a poem about an historical 1005 00:50:47,010 --> 00:50:50,610 heroine also named Malala, 1006 00:50:50,610 --> 00:50:52,580 and the poem, which I can't read to you, 1007 00:50:52,580 --> 00:50:55,186 unfortunately, because it's sort of copyright protected, 1008 00:50:55,186 --> 00:50:59,120 (laughs) but the poem that's inscribed on Malala's face 1009 00:50:59,120 --> 00:51:02,600 is a poem in which our Malala, 1010 00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:06,920 this Malala is compared to that earlier Malala 1011 00:51:06,920 --> 00:51:11,070 and in which the poem talks about this Malala 1012 00:51:11,070 --> 00:51:16,010 and the former Malala in terms of courage and inspiration 1013 00:51:16,010 --> 00:51:19,160 and fighting and fighting for what she believes in, 1014 00:51:19,160 --> 00:51:20,937 being a warrior for what she believes in, 1015 00:51:20,937 --> 00:51:24,550 and in Malala's case, using education as a way 1016 00:51:24,550 --> 00:51:28,640 and the pen as a way of fighting against the enemy. 1017 00:51:28,640 --> 00:51:33,640 So an extraordinarily powerful work and one of those works 1018 00:51:33,980 --> 00:51:36,390 that's got many, many sort of layers to it. 1019 00:51:36,390 --> 00:51:41,380 You can literally sort of look into Malala's eyes for hours 1020 00:51:41,380 --> 00:51:43,200 and really get a wonderful sense 1021 00:51:43,200 --> 00:51:45,670 of this extraordinary individual, and indeed, 1022 00:51:45,670 --> 00:51:48,163 that's what the artist herself said about, 1023 00:51:49,210 --> 00:51:51,330 the privilege of creating this work 1024 00:51:51,330 --> 00:51:55,740 was to be in the presence of this extraordinarily dignified 1025 00:51:55,740 --> 00:51:58,180 and wise and beautiful young woman. 1026 00:51:58,180 --> 00:52:02,350 And I think it just, it so comes out in the portrait. 1027 00:52:02,350 --> 00:52:04,700 It's a really fabulous way to end, 1028 00:52:04,700 --> 00:52:08,590 and I'm running out of time, so I will be quiet now. 1029 00:52:08,590 --> 00:52:11,040 Thank you. (laughs) 1030 00:52:11,040 --> 00:52:12,620 - Oh, Jo, I'm so sorry. 1031 00:52:12,620 --> 00:52:14,420 I interrupted your flow there 1032 00:52:14,420 --> 00:52:15,960 because I had to move into space 1033 00:52:15,960 --> 00:52:18,760 for wrapping up the programme. 1034 00:52:18,760 --> 00:52:20,710 But I just wanted to thank you so much 1035 00:52:20,710 --> 00:52:22,380 for taking the time today, 1036 00:52:22,380 --> 00:52:24,710 and apologies to everybody, we ran over time. 1037 00:52:24,710 --> 00:52:27,850 It doesn't look like anyone minded one bit, 1038 00:52:27,850 --> 00:52:29,840 because we were just mesmerised 1039 00:52:29,840 --> 00:52:31,140 by the stories that you were telling us 1040 00:52:31,140 --> 00:52:34,000 about these incredible, inspiring, powerful women. 1041 00:52:34,000 --> 00:52:36,080 I have to say that my, I brought my daughter along 1042 00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:39,080 to see the "Shakespeare to Winehouse" exhibition last week, 1043 00:52:39,080 --> 00:52:40,270 she got a little sneak peek, 1044 00:52:40,270 --> 00:52:43,310 and she, I couldn't budge her from standing 1045 00:52:43,310 --> 00:52:44,730 in front of that portrait of Malala. 1046 00:52:44,730 --> 00:52:46,020 It honestly is something 1047 00:52:46,020 --> 00:52:48,510 that you could stand in front of for hours 1048 00:52:48,510 --> 00:52:49,820 and still get more out of. 1049 00:52:49,820 --> 00:52:52,290 She really does have the most powerful gaze 1050 00:52:52,290 --> 00:52:53,620 and is such an impressive woman. 1051 00:52:53,620 --> 00:52:55,690 So we're very, very lucky to have her portrait 1052 00:52:55,690 --> 00:52:58,310 on display here at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra 1053 00:52:58,310 --> 00:53:00,190 until the 17th of July. 1054 00:53:00,190 --> 00:53:01,910 I really hope that some of you may be able 1055 00:53:01,910 --> 00:53:04,620 to come and see this exhibition in person. 1056 00:53:04,620 --> 00:53:05,980 Please do jump on our website, 1057 00:53:05,980 --> 00:53:09,470 portrait.gov.au/icons for all the information 1058 00:53:09,470 --> 00:53:12,300 about this exhibition and to book tickets. 1059 00:53:12,300 --> 00:53:15,230 Otherwise, if you can't, we will be bringing you 1060 00:53:15,230 --> 00:53:16,910 throughout the course of the exhibition 1061 00:53:16,910 --> 00:53:19,340 a lot more of these virtual tours and virtual programmes 1062 00:53:19,340 --> 00:53:21,360 so that we can share some more incredible stories 1063 00:53:21,360 --> 00:53:23,100 about these portraits with you. 1064 00:53:23,100 --> 00:53:25,410 I really do have to acknowledge just before we leave 1065 00:53:25,410 --> 00:53:27,590 our Auslan interpreter, Megan, 1066 00:53:27,590 --> 00:53:30,040 who I'm afraid has had to run off to another job, 1067 00:53:30,040 --> 00:53:32,550 but I neglected to acknowledge her in the beginning, 1068 00:53:32,550 --> 00:53:33,670 and I'm very sorry for that. 1069 00:53:33,670 --> 00:53:34,880 She's done a marvellous job 1070 00:53:34,880 --> 00:53:37,430 of interpreting this programme for us all today. 1071 00:53:37,430 --> 00:53:39,480 So thank you so much for joining us. 1072 00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:42,350 Please follow us on social media, @PortraitAu, 1073 00:53:42,350 --> 00:53:45,710 or jump on our website, portrait.gov.au for more information 1074 00:53:45,710 --> 00:53:48,020 about our virtual programmes coming up soon. 1075 00:53:48,020 --> 00:53:49,130 Until then, take care, 1076 00:53:49,130 --> 00:53:50,993 and we'll see you later on, bye-bye.