Maggi Hambling in conversation with Simon Martin

Join one of Britain’s most celebrated artists, Maggi Hambling, in conversation with Gallery Director Simon Martin.

They will reflect on her work including her new exhibition of paintings inspired by a night spent in the Sussex woodland guided by folk musician and conservationist, Sam Lee. Hambling’s new paintings respond to the nightingales’ song she heard that night and she will discuss how the epiphany of the birds song became her subject. The exhibition also includes works inspired by the voices of Leonard Cohen, PJ Harvey, and Will Young, as well as a monumental piece influenced by Nick Cave. As expressed throughout Hambling’s work, the paintings on display explore the delicate balance of life and death.

Black and white photograph of a woman sat on a stool against a paintstreaked wall. She is smoking a cigarette in her right hand.

Speaker - Maggi Hambling

Maggi Hambling CBE was born in Suffolk in 1945. She studied at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing from 1960 under Cedric Morris and Lett Haines, then at Ipswich School of Art, Camberwell, and finally the Slade School of Art, graduating in 1969.

In 1980 she was the First Artist in Residence at the National Gallery, London, and in 1995 she won the Jerwood Painting Prize (with Patrick Caulfield). Her public sculpture includes A conversation with Oscar Wilde (1998) at Adelaide Street, London facing Charing Cross Station and Scallop (2003), a sculpture to celebrate Benjamin Britten at Aldeburgh beach, Suffolk and for which the artist was awarded the Marsh Award for Excellence in Public Sculpture. A Sculpture for Mary Wollstonecraft was unveiled in Newington Green, London in 2020.

Hambling’s work is held in public collections including at Tate, British Museum, CAFA, Beijing and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.