Podcasts

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Writers talks in the Courtauld Gallery
2008/09


From November 2008 to January 2009, Ruth Padel, Somerset House Writer in Residence, invited six eminent writers from different genres to give a series of exclusive talks about their favourite painting in The Courtauld Gallery.

Each writer chose a work that particularly engaged, challenged, provoked or delighted them, and presented their personal reflections during a talk for a small audience, directly in front of the painting.

“I wanted to hear other writers, people whose professional life depends on listening to their own imagination, responding to these paintings. Not in art historical ways but personally and imaginatively. I wondered if discovering how one painting matters to one person might shed interesting light on what a great art gallery is for. What does a painting do to us? Where can it take us?”

Ruth Padel, Writer in Residence at Somerset House







Philip Pullman
on Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
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View guardian.co.uk Audio Slideshow




Julia Neuberger
on Pissarro's Lordship Lane Station
Download Podcast
View guardian.co.uk Audio Slideshow




Colm Tóibín
on Cézanne's Route Tournante
Download Podcast
View guardian.co.uk Audio Slideshow




Gillian Beer
on Vanessa Bell's Conversation
Download Podcast
View guardian.co.uk Audio Slideshow

 



 


Hisham Matar
on Cranach's Adam and Eve
View guardian.co.uk Audio Slideshow



Jackie Kay
on Degas's Woman at a Window and Lady with a Parasol
View Woman at a Window
View Lady with a Parasol
View guardian.co.uk Audio Slideshow

Listen to podcasts of the 2010 Writers' Talks events whith Andrew Motion, Margaret Drabble and Michael Morpurgoand others.