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Unlocking the Women's Art Collection

From 2022–2024 we carried out 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 called ‘Investigating the role of The Women’s Art Collection: Research & Teaching’, led by Principal Investigator Dr Lydia Hamlett, Fellow in History of Art, with Research Assistants Naomi Polonsky and Ella Nixon.  

As part of the public programme for the research project we organised the Collection’s first academic conference that can be accessed via this , became part of Bloomberg Connects and were able to launch a new website. In addition, four new thematic essays were commissioned from Naomi Polonsky and Ella Nixon as well as and early career academics Elisabetta Garletti and Lucy Howie. These can be accessed below.

As part of the engagement we worked with three community partners to creatively interpret the collection. Their responses to the Collection can be accessed here.  

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

Four documentary films of four artists in the Collection, filmed and produced by Rob Hill, commissioned by The Women's Art Collection for the exhibition The Women's Art Collection: Conversation Not Spectacle (28 September 2024 - 27 April 2025).