21 21st Century Women
“FEMINISM”…. How does the word sit with you? Does it make your toes curl? Do you visualise loose breasted hussies hurling flour bombs at the establishment? Where HAVE all the feminists gone?”
– Annie Lennox for Alice’s 21 21st Century Women Book 2008
The paintings for 21 21st Century Women (2008) were begun while Alice was in her late twenties, when she first started working as an artist. They were inspired by a trip to the National Portrait Gallery in the early 2000s, which seemed overwhelmingly filled with room after room of paintings of men, with occasional women as wives or monarchs. Alice wanted to show inspiring women as powerful and influential and was frustrated and enraged by the Lady Macbeth' syndrome she saw in the popular press, where ambitious or high achieving women were routinely demonised and their clothes or personal choices mocked and attacked.
It's hard to imagine now how against the common tide Alice's 21/21 project was. Being a feminist was extremely unfashionable and routinely ridiculed in the late 90s and early 00s, when being a ladette' and one of the boys was applauded. Annie Lennox wrote the foreword for Alice's accompanying book (see Essays in About section for full text): So let's get back on board with the eight lettered F word. Bring it on! Let's reframe, reboot and revitalise it. Let it reach the places where women have no rights, no power, no votes, no respect or value.
21 amazing women sat for Alice, all in a red chair: Baroness Scotland, the first ever woman Attorney General and the first black woman QC, responsible for numerous reforms. Annie Lennox, the groundbreaking musician, sang along to Ella Fitzgerald as Alice painted her. Dame Parveen Kumar, Professor and leading figure in the world of medicine, author of one of the world's most successful medical textbooks and President of the British Medial Association. Baroness Greenfield, Professor of Synaptic Pharmacology, the first woman to give the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures and parliamentary cross bencher in the House of Lords speaking on education, drugs, and economic empowerment for women. All of the 21 were the first women to do their role and it was Alice's first body of work as an artist.
We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. Margaret Atwood
SELECTED WORKS
21 / 21 ALPHABETICAL LIST OF SITTERS
Descriptions current at time of sitting
1. Cherie Booth, QC, specialising in public law, human rights, discrimination, media and information law, employment law and European Community law. Patron of 23 charities, including Barnardos, Refuge and Breast Cancer Care. Married to the Prime Minister and ranked the twelfth most powerful woman in the world by business magazine Forbes.
2. Fiona Bruce , Journalist and Broadcaster, one of the BBC's most experienced and high profile news presenters. Currently one of the main presenters on the BBC's Ten o'clock news and numerous other high profile programmes. Key presenter in the BBC's live event team and Newscaster of the Year'.
3. Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty. Campaigns to create a culture of respect for human rights'. Executive Governor of the British Institute of Human Rights, Executive Committee Member of the Administrative Law Bar Association, Editorial Board Member of the European Human Rights Law Review. Has published numerous pieces on civil liberties issues.
4. Jilly Cooper OBE, Novelist and social commentator. Has sold over 11 million copies in the UK alone. Lifetime Achievement Award from the British Book Awards, Patron of the Animals in War Memorial Campaign.
5. Sue Crewe, Editor in Chief of House and Garden UK, the UK's most influential home magazine, celebrating 10 years of Editorship this year. Public speaker on numerous subjects including the Influences of British Interior Design.
6. Susan Daniels, CEO of The National Deaf Children's Society, Disability Rights Commissioner, and Chair of Groundbreakers, Women Leaders in the Voluntary Sector, responsible for the growth of NDCS from an organisation of 25 staff with a turnover of £1 million, to an organisation with over 150 staff and a turnover of £11.5 million providing a wide range of services to families of deaf children both in the UK and internationally. Also responsible for the campaign which led to the introduction of universal new born hearing screening, now fully rolled out across the UK, which will transform the lives of deaf children and their families in the UK. She is deaf herself.
7. Sarah Doukas, Entrepreneur; founder of Storm, now an industry luminary she started the business from her bedroom in 1987 and has gone on to discover and promote some of the most recognisable faces in the world. Her quest for the unconventional has resulted in some of the defining images of our times and a business with a multimillion pound turnover.
8. Nicole Farhi, Designer; created her own eponymous fashion label in 1983. Now has shops worldwide, as well as restaurants in London and New York. Has won numerous awards and says I believe that everything, be it a dress or a pot, has to have a soul.
9. Dame Evelyn Glennie, DBE, Solo Percussionist, composer, teacher and motivational speaker, first person in musical history to successfully create and sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist, winner of 5 Grammies, 80 international awards and Scottish Woman of the Decade. She has been profoundly deaf meaning that she has some very limited hearing since age 12. She is the patron of many charities supporting the deaf, young musicians, and people with a variety of disabilities.
10. Val Gooding CBE, CEO BUPA, Number Three in the Financial Times' Europe's Top Women in Business' list, also ranked as Britain's highest paid female executive. A non-executive director Standard Chartered Bank and Compass Group plc. Serves as a Trustee of the British Museum.
11. Professor Baroness Susan Greenfield, Distinguished neuroscientist, broadcast, writer and best selling author of The Private Life of the Brain; The Human Brain: a Guided Tour and Tommorrow's People. Professor of Pharmacology at Oxford and Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.
12. Anya Hindmarch, Designer and Businesswoman, she has thirty stores across the world. Launched the hugely successful charity promotion Be a Bag, raising money for more than twenty charities around the world.
13. Baroness Helena Kennedy, QC, has spent her professional life giving voice to those who have least power within the system, championing civil liberties and promoting human rights. She has acted in many of the prominent cases of the last decade including the Brighton Bombing Trial, Guildford Four Appeal, the bombing of the Israeli Embassy, the abduction of Baby Abbie Humphries and a number of key domestic violence cases. She is currently acting in cases connected to the recent wave of terrorism. Her numerous positions include: Chair of the Human Genetics Commission, member of the World Bank Institute's External Advisory Council and board member of the British Museum. She was Chair of the British Council for six years. She is a Bencher of Gray's Inn and a Member of the House of Lords, speaking on issues of human rights and civil liberties and is a frequent broadcaster and journalist on law and women's rights.
14. Professor Parveen Kumar CBE BSc MD(Lond) FRCP. Leading figure in the world of medicine, Chair of the Medicines Commission, author of one of the world's most successful textbooks in medicine, with Clark ML, Clinical Medicine. Chairman MSc in Gastroenterology, Institute of Cell and Molecular Science. Professor of Medical Education at St Bartholomew's, The Royal London and Homerton hospitals. In addition, Vice President of the Royal College of Physicians. Established the educational program for the Royal College.
15. Annie Lennox, Singer and Composer. One of the finest musical voices of the age. Her songs, both with Eurythmics and alone, are part of the soundtrack to our collective lives. Nominated for countless awards throughout her career, including several Grammies, seven BRIT Awards (including Lifetime's Achievement), Ivor Novello Awards and the prestigious Billboard Century Award for 2002. Received a Golden Globe Award in 2004 and an Oscar for the song Into the West' from Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.
16. Pinky Lilani, OBE, Entrepreneur, Motivational Speaker and Indian Cookery Specialist. Chairman, The Asian Women of Achievement Awards; Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; mentor, The Prince's Youth Business Trust; member of Asia House special project committee, Mayor of Croydon's charity committee and European Women of Achievement Awards. Helped set up the Women's Interfaith Network to encourage communication and understanding between women of different faiths.
17. Baroness Patricia Scotland QC, Attorney General for England and Wales, a ministerial position in the British government. She is the first woman to hold the office. Named as Britain's most influential black woman in August 2007 in a list compiled by New Nation. First black female QC & joint first black woman peer.
18. Cilla Snowball CBE, Chairman of AMV BBDO the UK's biggest ad agency. Her agency have produced numerous award winning campaigns for their clients, which include Guinness, Sainsbury's, The Economist, the BBC, Walkers and BT. She is a Non Executive Director of Fishburn Hedges, the PR agency, and a trustee of MacMillan Cancer Relief. She is a Past President of the Women's Advertising Club of London and a Fellow of the RSA.
19. Dianne Thompson CBE, CEO of Camelot Plc, She has won numerous awards including Businesswoman of the Year, Marketer of the Year, and one of the Guardian's 100 most influential people in media, she is also the first woman to be voted UK's most powerful Marketer (Marketing Magazine 2006). Camelot employs 900 people and has an annual turnover of around £4.6 billion. She is also President of the Women's Advertising Club of London, a Council Member of ISBA and the Press Complaints Commission, a member of the CBI President's Committee and a non-executive director of RAC plc.
20. Jacqueline Wilson OBE, Author and The Children's Laureate, an award which recognises and highlights the importance of exceptional children's authors in creating the readers of tomorrow. She has received countless honours and awards, including The Young Telegraph/Fully Booked Award, the Smarties Prize, the Children's Book Award, Children's Book of the Year at the British Book Awards, the Guardian Children's Fiction Award and W.H. Smith Children's Book of the Year Award. She has sold millions of books, her total stands at over 20 million in the UK alone. In June 2002 she received an OBE for services to literacy in schools.
21. Lucy Yeomans, Editor of Harpers Bazaar, has worked for a host of publications including Australian Vogue, the Sunday Times, The European and Tatler. She has recently overseen the relaunch of the magazine from its previous incarnation as Harpers & Queen. She is a judge for the Orange Prize for Fiction and Chairman of Hay on Wye Literary Festival.