
Celebrating Miss Biffin: In Conversation with Alison Lapper, Emma Rutherford and Ellie Smith
23 November 2023
Biffin excelled as a professional painter by challenging the norms of Georgian society, which restricted autonomy and financial independence for disabled women. In conversation with art historians Emma Rutherford and Ellie Smith, the artist Alison Lapper will share her experience as a disabled woman artist 150 years later.
Ellie and Emma co-curated a criticically acclaimed exhibition at Philip Mould & Co. in 2022, '"Without Hands: The Art of Sarah Biffin'. Alison was born with phocomelia, the same condition as Biffin, who she describes as a “formidable artist and a formidable character… a strong, stubborn, single-minded human being”.