Portraits with empathy

WITH more than a hint of nerves, I slide into an empty seat in the auditorium for my first university lecture. I look down the aisle hoping to see a friendly face, but there is no-one I recognise, whi

There are many reasons that an artist’s ambitions can be thwarted, including the decision to become a teacher. Later this month, an exhibition will shine a light on talent obscured by a career in the classroom

What paints do you favour and why? I use mostly Golden Heavy Body or Fluid Acrylics. The colour is phenomenal and much stronger than other makes. Mixed media technique is another favourite: I can incl

BEFORE SARAH JANE BROWN BECAME A PAINTER, she learned to read the sea. Not in the romanticised, windswept sense; but practically, viscerally, day after day. With over two decades working on the water

After a life-threatening illness spurred Helene Kröller-Müller to make plans for a museum, she bought modern art voraciously, forming an extraordinary collection that shaped the early-20th-century perception of Vincent van Gogh

With a strength of character that belied her fragile looks, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun pushed the boundaries of royal portraiture and, after the French Revolution, challenged the loss of female influence via every frill and fold in her work