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As our acclaimed display Flora Yukhnovich and François Boucher: The Language of the Rococo draws to a close, join director Dr Xavier Bray, Flora Yukhnovich and best-selling writer Katy Hessel as they reflect on the themes raised by this astonishing contemporary intervention at the Collection. Has the display challenged viewers to reconsider preconceptions about Rococo art and has it changed the way we look at the work of women artists, both today and in the past?

About the speakers: Dr Xavier Bray is Director of the Wallace Collection.

Katy Hessel is an art historian, curator, broadcaster, and author of The Story of Art without Men, a Sunday Times and New York Times Bestseller, and Waterstones Book of the Year. She runs @thegreatwomenartists, an Instagram account that celebrates women artists. Hessel writes for The Guardian, and hosts 'The Great Women Artists Podcast'. In 2024, she launched 'Museums Without Men', an audio series highlighting works by women and gender non-conforming artists in museum collections worldwide, including The Met, Tate Britain, Hirshhorn, Fine Arts Museum San Francisco, Hepworth Wakefield, and more. Hessel writes and presents arts documentaries for the BBC, such as Artemisia Gentileschi (2020) and Art on the BBC: Monet (2022). She is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge; the Curatorial Trustee at Charleston Trust; and an alumni of Forbes 30 Under 30. Hessel has lectured at The Guggenheim, MFA Boston, Tate, The National Gallery, Courtauld, Cambridge University; presented films for BBC, Tate, Royal Academy, Barbican; and regularly hosts for BBC Radio 3 and 4. She has curated exhibitions at Victoria Miro Gallery, Kasmin Gallery, Stephen Friedman Gallery, and more. 

Born in Norwich, Flora Yukhnovich completed her MA at the City & Guilds of London Art School in 2017, during which time she began visiting the Wallace Collection. Her dynamic, multi-layered paintings, which fluctuate between the legible and the abstract, adopt the language of the Rococo established by artists such as Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Jean-Antoine Watteau and François Boucher. Her suggestions of grand 18th-century compositions or cornucopias of fruits and flowers, are painted in a Rococo palette of porcelain colours. They are also envisaged through a kaleidoscope of art historical and contemporary cultural references. Since her first solo show in 2017 Yukhnovich has exhibited across Britain and Europe, including solo exhibitions with her gallery, Victoria Miro, The Venice Paintings (2020), Barcarole  (2020) and Thirst Trap (2022), and most recently as one of the first artists in the Ashmolean NOW series at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. In 2018 she completed The Great Women Artists Residency at Palazzo Monti, Brescia, Italy.

Take part at the museum: Join us at the museum for this talk, followed by refreshments and an opportunity to see the Flora Yukhnovich and François Boucher: The Language of the Rococo display until 20.45.

Watch online: This talk will also be broadcast live from the museum. Online ticketholders will be emailed a link to join 24 hours in advance. Ticketholders will also receive a link to view a recording of the talk, which will be available for two weeks.