Portraiture and Celebrity: From the First Actresses to the Modern Diva

Portraiture and Celebrity: From the First Actresses to the Modern Diva

Date: 29 March 2011 (Tuesday)
Time: 5:00pm
Venue: Room 2.38, Main Building, HKU

This lecture explores the role of painted, graphic and photographic portraiture of actresses in the construction of celebrity culture. Focusing partly on late seventeenth and eighteenth century portraiture of British actresses such as Nell Gwyn, Peg Woffington, Mary Robinson and Sarah Siddons, it considers the assumption that the eighteenth century marked the beginning of modern celebrity culture, encouraged by the increased dissemination of visual imagery of theatrical stars and secular ‘idols’. It also explores the idea that then, as now, celebrity culture could be seen to have a ‘feminine face’, and that women were both highly visible and influential within public spaces of entertainment of the period. The lecture would draw parallels with modern ‘star systems’ and the ways in which modern forms of celebrity portraiture, especially photographic images, are coded as ‘divine divas’, goddesses, ‘sex kittens’, ‘bad girls’ and independent women. Exploring eighteenth century imagery alongside 20th century photography of modern stars such as Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe, Vanessa Redgrave and Elizabeth Taylor, it would explore the fantasy of ‘public intimacy’ which is invited by portraiture from both periods.

This lecture draws on research for my forthcoming curated exhibition and catalogue ‘The First Actresses’ opening at the National Portrait Gallery in London in October, 2011

Speaker: Gill Perry

Gill Perry is Professor of Art History at the Open University, where she has chaired several courses, including Modern Art: Practices and Debates and Art and its Histories. She has published books, articles and catalogue introductions on modern and contemporary European and American art, and eighteenth century and contemporary British art, and has a particular interest in issues of gender difference within art history and visual culture. She is currently Head of Research and External Collaborations for the Department of Art History.