The Arts Society Kennet & Swindon `TASKS’ – March 2024 Meeting – The Lecture: ‘Elizabeth Vigee Le Burn – one of the finest eighteenth-century French painters and among the most important women artists of all time’

The March 2024 meeting of TASKS will be on Monday 18^th March.  The lecture will begin at 11.00 am. Guests most welcome – £7 fee – payable at the door.

The Lecture: Elizabeth Vigee Le Burn – France’s leading female artist

Elizabeth Vigee Le Brun was one of the finest eighteenth-century French painters and among the most important women artists of all time.

Celebrated for her expressive portraits of French royalty and aristocracy, and especially of her patron Marie Antoinette, Vigée Le Brun exemplified success and resourcefulness in an age when women were rarely allowed either.

Because of her close association with the queen, Vigée Le Brun was forced to flee France during the French Revolution. Subsequently, for the remaining twelve years of her life, she travelled throughout Europe, painting noble sitters in the courts of Naples, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, leaving us with a legacy of sensitive and well-crafted portraits.

The Lecturer: Lucrezia Walker

Lucrezia Is a regular lecturer at the National Gallery both in front of the paintings and in the lecture theatre. For the Tate Gallery’s Development Department, she speaks to their corporate sponsors in their offices and at their private receptions in both of the Tate Galleries. She teaches US undergraduates on their Study Abroad semesters in London. She was Lay Canon for the Visual Arts at St Paul’s Cathedral 2010-2014.