WOMEN IN THE PICTURE BOOK TALK 1
The Female Form
Fri 2 Oct 2026,11am-12pm
This talk is in-person in the Headley Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom.
Tickets are £10. Booking is essential. Book below
With Catherine McCormack, author, independent academic & critic
This is the first of four talks with the author Catherine McCormack inspired by her celebrated book, 'Women in the Picture: Women, Art and the Power of Looking'. Taking our Aphrodite exhibition as a starting point, McCormack will look at how the goddess of love has shaped and continues to shape definitions of female identity.
From palaeolithic to pop culture, in this first talk, the author will look at how the figure of Aphrodite/Venus intersects with conversations around the politics of beauty, ageing, racial identity, and female sexuality.
Terracotta figure of Aphrodite, Smyrna, Turkey, 200-1 BCE
Birth of Venus, Leon Underwood, 1944, print
Following talks take a similar approach in opening up three more cultural archetypes of female identity that are rooted in art history but resonate far beyond into gender politics both past and present.
- Talk 2, 30 Oct: Monsters & Temptresses
- Talk 3, 27 Nov: The Virgin Mary & Motherhood
- Talk 4, 11 Dec: Tragic Heroines
More details about the forthcoming talks coming soon.
About the author
Catherine is an author, independent academic and critic. Her most recent book is Women in the Picture: Women, Art and the Power of Looking She has held teaching positions at University College London, Sotheby’s Institute of Art and the University of Oxford. Catherine has a PhD in Art History from UCL where she has worked as a Teaching Fellow and in 2016 she won the University of York’s international postdoctoral writing prize.
Part of the Museum's Love and Legacy season of events.
BOOKING
This event takes place onsite in the Headley Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom
Tickets are £10 each
BOOK YOUR IN-PERSON TICKET BOOK YOUR ONLINE TICKET
If you have any questions, please email us at publicprogrammes@ashmus.ox.ac.uk
