Helen Beard and Anna Liber Lewis: In Conversation with Catherine McCormack

If you missed the panel talk at the gallery, we invite you to watch the conversation between author and curator Catherine McCormack and artists Helen Beard and Anna Liber-Lewis for a discussion about the themes in her new book, Women in the Picture.  Exploring themes which include sexuality, femininity and mental health, author and artists delve deeper into what it means to be a woman in the arts.  

Women in the Picture is a bold reconsideration of women in art - from Old Masters to the posts of Instagram influencers. In this impassioned book, art historian Catherine McCormack asks us to look again at what these images have told us to value, opening up our most loved images – from those of Titian and Botticelli to Picasso and the Pre-Raphaelites. Her conversation with contemporary artists - Helen Beard and Anna Liber Lewis - demonstrates how women artists are offering us new ways of thinking about women's identity, sexuality and power.

The panel was accompanying the exhibition, Song of Songs: Representations of the self, spirituality and states of mind in art – from modernity to the digital age, curated by Rachel Thomas, head of exhibitions and senior curator at The Irish Museum of Modern Art.