The Manton Centre for British Art

Research Notes: Views of their Own: Rediscovering and Re-presenting the Work of Women Artists

Timed to coincide with the Courtauld Gallery’s current exhibition, A View of One’s Own: Landscape Drawings by British Women Artists, 1760-1860, this conference aims to investigate the challenges and opportunities presented by the recovery and re-presentation of historic women artists whose work and reputations have fallen out of art historical narratives.

Bringing together art historians and curators, this conference will explore various approaches to the complexities of bringing to light artists long overlooked by art history, whether in an exhibition or through the written word.

This conference is organised by Dr. Rachel Sloan, Associate Curator for Works on Paper, the Courtauld.

13 Mar 2026

10:30 - 17:00

Tickets £10-20, booking essential

Vernon Square Campus, Lecture Theatre 2

This event takes place at our Vernon Square campus (WC1X 9EW).

Programme Schedule:

10.00-10.30: Registration

10.30 – 10.40: Welcome and opening remarks (Rachel Sloan)

10.40 – 11.50: Session 1

Paris Spies-Gans (independent scholar)
On the Horizon: The Challenges of Reestablishing the Professional Legacies of Women Landscapists

Susan Owens (independent scholar)
Mountains and Moods

Hannah Lyons (University of Reading)
Beyond Accomplishment: Lady Louisa Augusta Greville’s (1743-1779) Etchings

11.50 – 12.20 : Coffee break

12.20 – 1.30: Session 2

Ella Nixon (The Women’s Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge)
Women Artists in Regional Galleries: Local Opportunities with Global Significance

Alice Strickland (Royal Collection Trust)
Victorian Women Artists and Queen Victoria’s matronage

Lara Nicholls (National Gallery of Victoria)
Light Moves: Impressionist Women Artists in the Imperial Art World

1.30 – 2.30: Lunch break

2.30 – 3.40: Session 3

Anita V. Sganzerla (Katrin Bellinger Collection)
By her hand? Women artists at work

Linda Goddard (University of St Andrews)
“I am my own heroine”: women artists, life writing, and self-construction

Alice Dodds (Courtauld Institute)
A Living Garment: Elizabeth Peacock and Britain’s Lost Modernism

3.40 – 4.10: Break

4:10 – 4.55: Session 4

Aindreas Scholz (Independent artist/Technological University Dublin)
Unfixing the Amateur: Anna Atkins, Cyanotype Networks, and the Afterlives of Overlooked Women’s Landscape Practice

Rachael Field and Sarah-Joy Ford (Independent artists/University of Leeds)
A Leap into the Glorious Dark: Making Lesbian Art History Together

4.55: Closing remarks and drinks

Pastoral painting of church and large tree, with a rainbow in the sky
Fanny Blake, A rainbow over Patterdale Churchyard, Cumbria, 1849. Watercolour and opaque watercolour over graphite, with scratching out, on wove paper. Jointly owned by the Samuel Courtauld Trust and The Wordsworth Trust. Gift from a private collection in memory of W. W. Spooner, 2025.

Citations