ROSSETTI’S WOMEN with Linda Smith

If you have an interest in the arts and enjoy learning and socialising with like-minded people join ADFAS Shoalhaven at their upcoming lecture.

On Thursday 2 August Linda Smith will present Rossetti’s Women. She will disentangle some of the myths about the women in Gabriel Rossetti’s life. Rossetti was an influential British artist towards the end of the nineteenth century and women were enormously important in both his life and his art. The women include his sister and mother who patiently modelled while their adored Gabriel worked through his early difficulties with oil paint. There’s Elizabeth Siddal, whom Rossetti eventually married after a protracted and emotionally draining courtship, but whose tragic death left him shattered and wracked with guilt. We’ll meet Fanny Cornworth and Annie Miller, both models for important paintings but threats to his marriage. And then, his final desperate love, Jane Morris, the wife of William Morris. The lecture will examine painted representations of these women in the rather complicated context of attitudes towards women at this time.

Linda holds two first-class degrees in art history. She is an experienced guide and lecturer at Tate Britain, Tate Modern and the Dulwich Picture Gallery and lectures to secondary school audiences and independent art societies.