Tracey Emin CBE RA & Simon Shaw on Edvard Munch’s Women

Thursday 23 February, 6pm

Munch’s pursuit of emotional truth changed art forever. Tracey Emin CBE RA and Sotheby's Simon Shaw explore how women shaped this quest, at a time when relations between the sexes were changing radically. As Sotheby’s prepares to auction his seminal Dance on the Beach, they ask why Munch’s questions are more compelling than ever today.

with Mary Beard, Holly Braine and Shahidha Bari

Sunday 26 February, 1pm

A panel discussion featuring classicist Mary Beard and Sotheby’s specialist Holly Braine. How has Western culture depicted powerful women down the ages? To what extent have they been packaged into a male template? And how much have they been able to control their own image? Chaired by cultural critic Shahidha Bari, the conversation will range from sculptures of ancient goddesses such as Aphrodite and Athena, to portraits of Queen Elizabeth I as ‘Gloriana’, to the empowered politicians and cultural icons of today.

with Anne Webber, Lucian Simmons and Helena Newman

Sunday 26 February, 2.30-3.30pm

Some of the greatest artworks of the twentieth century were commissioned and owned by connoisseurs who lost their collections following persecution under the Third Reich. What was the cultural impact of these collectors? How does restitution shed light on this important piece of history and commemorate the individuals behind the artworks?  In this panel, chaired by Helena Newman, Lucian Simmons and Anne Webber will examine the role of restitution in celebrating these collectors as art patrons. The discussion will focus on the cultural milieu of 1920s Berlin, and the Stern and Glaser families, whose restituted masterpieces by Kandinsky and Munch will be on view in our New Bond Street galleries from 22 February - 1 March.

with Paloma Picasso, Iwona Blazwick, Emma Baker and Will Gompertz

Monday 27 February, 12pm

Throughout the ages, female artists, designers, gallerists and collectors have shaped the tastes and values of their generation. Looking at both the past and the present, this conversation will celebrate creative women who push patriarchal boundaries and challenge orthodoxies to find new modes of expression. Chaired by Will Gompertz, fashion and jewellery designer Paloma Picasso, curator and art critic Iwona Blazwick, and Sotheby’s Head of Evening Sale Emma Baker will discuss how women in art, fashion and design have pushed society forwards through their creativity.

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with Mary McCartney, Sonia Boyce, Lisa Armstrong and Bettina Korek

Wednesday 15 March, 12pm

The idea of the artist’s muse conjures up a glamorous but passive woman portrayed by a male artist. Yet many of these women have been talents in their own right, creatively inspired as well as sources of inspiration in others. In this panel chaired by Serpentine Galleries CEO Bettina Korek, photographer Mary McCartney, artist Sonia Boyce and Daily Telegraph fashion director Lisa Armstrong will examine how through art, fashion and photography women have succeeded in breaking the boundaries set by men, reframing the role of women in art as both image and image-maker.

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Emma Baker first joined Sotheby’s in 2011 as a Researcher/Writer for the Contemporary Art Department in London and was appointed Head of Research in 2014 with a focus on the academic and visual content of the Evening Sale catalogues. After playing an increasingly leading role in the running of these auctions, Emma was made Head of Sale in October 2018. In 2017 she was responsible for co-curating the selling exhibition at Sotheby’s S2 Gallery, Traumata: Louise Bourgeois/Yayoi Kusama. Prior to joining Sotheby’s, Emma worked in the Curatorial Department at Tate Britain after graduating with an MA in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2010.

Shahidha Bari is an academic, critic and broadcaster. She is a Professor at the University of the Arts London, a presenter of BBC Radio 3's nightly Free Thinking programme, also known as the Arts and Ideas podcast, and the occasional host of BBC Radio 4's Front Row. She is the author of Dressed: The Secret Life of Clothes (2019), the winner of The Observer Anthony Burgess Arts Journalism Prize 2016 and has been a judge for the Booker Prize for Fiction, the Forward Poetry Prizes and the Baillie Gifford Non-Fiction Prize. She writes for The Guardian, Times Literary Supplement and Frieze magazine.

Dame Mary Beard is Cambridge Emerita Professor of Classics and Fellow of Newnham College. As one of Britain's best-known classicists, she has written numerous books including the Wolfson Prize-winning Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town, the best-selling SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, Women & Power and most recently Twelve Caesars – Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern. Mary has presented highly acclaimed television documentaries including Meet the Romans and Rome – Empire without Limit, hosted the BBC arts show Inside Culture, and was co-presenter of the BBC landmark series, Civilisations. After being made an OBE in 2013 for services to classical scholarship, Beard was made a dame in 2018. Mary’s forthcoming book, due to be released in the autumn, will explore the world of the Roman emperor.

Recently appointed to Arts AlUla in Saudi Arabia, curator, writer and art historian Iwona Blazwick was Director of the Whitechapel Gallery, London, from 2001 to 2022 and was formerly at Tate Modern and London’s ICA. She inaugurated the Tate Turbine Hall and Whitechapel Gallery commissions’ programmes, and has been an independent curator of survey shows and public art commissions in Europe and the US, Japan and China. She is an advisor for the Mayor of London’s Fourth Plinth Committee and the City of London’s Sculpture in the City.

Sonia Boyce is an interdisciplinary artist and academic working across film, photography, print, sound and installation. In 2022 she presented FEELING HER WAY, a major new commission for the British Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale for which she was awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. Boyce came to prominence in the early 1980s as part of the British Black Arts Movement with figurative pastel drawings and photo collages that addressed issues of race and gender in Britain. From the 1990s onwards, Boyce’s practice has taken a significant multi-media and improvisational turn. Since 2014 she has been a Professor at University of the Arts London, where she holds the inaugural Chair in Black Art & Design. Her research into Black artists and modernism culminated in the 2018 BBC Four documentary Whoever Heard of a Black Artist?

Holly Braine is an auctioneer and specialist in Impressionist and Modern art. She is Head of the Modern Art Day sales for Sotheby’s in London and has been closely involved with several high-profile consignments since joining the company in 2012, including the remarkable collection of works on paper, sculptures and ceramics from Marina Picasso. Prior to her career in the art world, Holly was awarded a BA in Classics and an MPhil in Latin Literature from the University of Cambridge. Alongside her Greek and Roman pursuits, she was continually involved with productions at the ADC Theatre. Today she uses her performance skills to great aplomb on the rostrums in New York and London.
 

Tracey Emin CBE RA is one of the art world's most celebrated and interesting figures, with an intensely personal and visceral approach to her subject matter. Exploring themes such as her own autobiographical history, love, the female body and the human condition, Emin has secured her place as one of the most powerful storytellers in art history.

Will Gompertz is the Artistic Director of the Barbican and was previously the BBC’s Arts Editor, reporting extensively on the arts across the globe. Gompertz has also written and presented countless documentaries and spent seven years as a director of the Tate Galleries where he was responsible for its BAFTA-winning website, creative direction, and the launch of the UK's first Performance Art festival. He has written two internationally best-selling non-fiction books What Are You Looking At? (2012) – a history of modern art and Think Like an Artist (2015) about creativity. Gompertz was voted one of the World's Top 50 Creative Thinkers by New York's Creativity magazine. His next book, See What You’re Missing, an insight into the minds of artists, is due to be released in March 2023.  

Bettina Korek is Chief Executive of Serpentine, Kensington Gardens. Prior to arriving in London in 2020, she spent two decades leading arts organisations in her hometown of Los Angeles, most recently as founding Executive Director of Frieze Los Angeles. In 2006, she founded ForYourArt, an organisation that has expanded the place of art in everyday life in Southern California. She served on the Los Angeles County Arts Commission from 2011-2020 and was the organisation’s president in 2016-2017.

Mary McCartney was born in London in 1969. Her photographic work has focused on discovering those rare moments of unguarded, emotionally charged intimacy that offer us a new insight to the subject. Her work has concentrated on the world of portrait and is suffused with a deep personal investment that captures the creative chemistry between Mary and her subjects. She responds to her wide variety of subjects as spontaneously as they are studied, with her distinctive style and talent for embodying the vulnerabilities, histories and personalities of her subjects.

Paloma Picasso is a designer particularly renowned for her bold and colourful jewellery creations for Tiffany & Co. She is the daughter of artists Francoise Gilot and Pablo Picasso.

Over his 25-year tenure at Sotheby’s, Simon Shaw has developed a unique perspective on the art market. His experience spans Paris, London, New York, Greece, Scandinavia, Japan and South America. As Head of Impressionist & Modern Art he set new benchmarks for artists including Monet, Magritte, Giacometti, Miró and Kandinsky. His 2018 sale of Modigliani’s Nu couché for $157.2 million represents the highest auction price ever achieved at Sotheby’s.

Since 1999 Mr. Shaw has pioneered sales of Nordic art, bringing artists such as Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Helene Schjerfbeck, Vilhelm Hammershoi and Harald Sohlberg to a global audience. He is the leading expert on Edvard Munch, developing his market over a series of landmark sales. Nine of the top ten auction sales for Munch were staged by Mr. Shaw, including the 2012 sale of The Scream for $119.9m which set a new World Record for any work of art sold at auction. Dada and Surrealism are further interests, with record prices achieved for key artists including Dali, Magritte, Ernst, Man Ray, Picabia, Carrington and De Chirico.

Lucian Simmons, Vice Chairman and Worldwide Head of Sotheby’s Restitution Department and Senior Specialist, Impressionist and Modern Art Department, Sotheby’s New York, joined Sotheby’s in 1995. Lucian works extensively with art collectors and their advisors throughout North America and Europe and has been involved in the sale of some of the most significant artworks to come to auction in recent years including Onement VI by Barnett Newman (sold for $43.8m in May 2013) and Bildnis Gertha Felsöványi by Gustav Klimt (sold for £24.8m in June 2015). He has worked on restitution and provenance issues since 1997 and has been involved in the resolution of claims to art works worth in excess of $850 million.

He was called to the Bar in 1984 and later re-qualified as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales. He was a partner in the London City Law Firm of Barlow, Lyde and Gilbert prior to joining Sotheby's. He is a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales.

Mr. Simmons has spoken widely on art market issues and in particular on the displacement of art during WWII. Mr. Simmons has been interviewed on the subject on television and radio and has appeared in a number of film documentaries. He gives regular seminars at universities and law schools across North America and has given evidence to the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport of the House of Commons, London, to the European Parliament, Brussels, and to the Prague Conference on Holocaust Era Assets.

Anne Webber is co-founder and Co-Chair of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe (CLAE), established in London in 1999. CLAE is a non-profit, expert, representative body which negotiates restitution policies with governments and institutions internationally, and acts for families worldwide to identify, locate and recover their Nazi-looted cultural property. It has achieved the restitution of over 3,500 items of cultural property. She is also founder and Director of the Central Registry of Information on Looted Cultural Property 1933-1945 at www.lootedart.com, set up in 2001 to fulfil Washington Principle Vl and which provides an online repository of the latest research, news and information from 49 countries and a database of 25,000 objects. Both organisations promote access to records, the identification of looted cultural property and the tracing of its rightful owners.

She is Deputy Chair of the UK Spoliation Advisory Committee which advises UK museums on their provenance research and claims handling. She was a member of the organising committees of the 2000 Vilnius International Forum, the 2009 Prague Conference, and the 2017 London Conference. She co-drafted Council of Europe Resolution 1205 on the restitution of looted cultural property, the UK Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Act 2009, and the 2017 Spoliation Action Plan, adopted by five European governments and which led in 2018 to the formation of the Network of European Restitution Committees.