Photo by Jo Underhill

The Women’s Art Collection: Conversation Not Spectacle

Sat 28 September 2024 - Sun 23 February 2025

Murray Edwards College

Beginning with the artist-in-residence scheme that seeded the idea for the Collection, the exhibition takes us through three decades, from the very first acquisition campaign all the way up to the present day.

The exhibition title draws on the words of feminist art historian Professor Griselda Pollock at the Collection’s launch in 1992. Of the artworks and the Collection’s radical potential, she declared: “Hanging here together, they provide not a dumb spectacle but a model of conversation.”

This exhibition brings together a selection of works that are displayed across Murray Edwards College.

Conversation Not Spectacle is the culmination of a two-year research project that aimed to maximise the role of The Women’s Art Collection within research and teaching activities at the University of Cambridge and unlock the Collection as a resource for the broader public.

The project was funded by the Isaac Newton Trust, Arts Council England, the Bateman Family Charitable Trust and Mike, Isobel and Olivia Standing.

Featured Artists

Elizabeth Blackadder
Claudia Clare
Eileen Cooper
Amanda Faulkner
Elisabeth Frink
Maggi Hambling
Nicola Hicks
Charlotte Hodes
Alexis Hunter
Nerys Ann Johnson
Lucy Jones
Marie-Louise von Motesiczky
Anya Paintsil
Faith Ringgold & Grace Matthews
Paula Rego
Jo Spence
Lexi Strauss
Suzanne Treister
Elisabeth Vellacott
Coral Woodbury

Cost: 0.00