• 21 November 2018
  • 6:00 – 8:30 pm

Following the rediscovery of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant’s Famous Women ceramic dinner service last year, this event will serve a feast of new research on these plates. The conversation around the dinner party table will include topics such as the circumstances of the Famous Women commission, the importance of this set within the histories of modern ceramics and the legacy of these plates for other artists and designers.

The evening will begin with a screening of the new film “The Famous Women Dinner Service: In Conversation with Contemporary Art”, which is a conversation between Judy Chicago, The Women’s Art League, and Hana Leaper, filmed by PMC Research Fellow and Filmmaker, Jonathan Law, at Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum.

Hana Leaper, former PMC Fellow and now Senior Lecturer at John Moores University, will then discuss the creation and significance of the set. This will be followed by short “conversation starters” from leading researchers on the Bloomsbury group, hospitality and food history, modernist design and ceramics.

Event Timings

18.00-18.15: Arrival and drinks reception

18.15-18.20: Welcome from Sarah Victoria Turner (Paul Mellon Centre)

18.20-18.50: Film screening: “The Famous Women Dinner Service: In Conversation with Contemporary Art”

18.50: Guests to move down to the Library for "dinner party"

19.00-19.20: Hana Leaper to talk about making the film and project

19.20-20.00: Discussion

Image credit: Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, Famous Women, ca. 1932-4 ceramic. Copyright the Estate of Vanessa Bell, courtesy of Henrietta Garnett, and the Estate of Duncan Grant. All rights reserved, DACS 2017. Digital image courtesy of Piano Nobile (Robert Travers Works of Art Limited).