About Robert Louis Stevenson
With the National Theatre’s spellbinding production of Treasure Island continuing to attract worthy praise, and Andrew Motion’s recent novel Silver seeing Jim return to the island in pursuit of more lost booty, the fast-approaching 130th anniversary of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Gothic novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde promises to keep London alert to the rich career of Scotland’s foremost Victorian writer.
Claire Harman, writer
Claire Harman, whose Robert Louis Stevenson Biography appeared in 2005, will soon provide an insight into the writer’s London period, taking John Singer Sargent’s 1885 portrait of Stevenson as a starting point to her one-night-only discussion of the relationship between nineteenth century literature and visual culture.
John Singer Sargent: artwork at the National Portrait Gallery
Having painted Stevenson’s portrait a year before the publication of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Sargent noted that the writer ‘seemed to me the most intense creature I had ever met’, the finished picture reminding Stevenson himself of ‘a caged maniac’ pacing his study and fidgeting with his moustache. In keeping with the novel’s exploration of hidden personalities we highly anticipate Harman’s original take on Sargent’s painting, uncovering the ‘maniac’ beneath the portrait.
In association with the National Portrait Gallery, this Royal Society of Literature lecture also forms part of an extensive programme of events celebrating Sargent’s work, coinciding with the opening week of the gallery’s unmissable retrospective of the artist’s career, in which the picture of Stevenson can be seen in the context of Sargent’s ground-breaking portraiture. Harman’s lecture is sure to enrich the exhibition for anyone who attends.
With the National Theatre’s spellbinding production of Treasure Island continuing to attract worthy praise, and Andrew Motion’s recent novel Silver seeing Jim return to the island in pursuit of more lost booty, the fast-approaching 130th anniversary of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Gothic novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde promises to keep London alert to the rich career of Scotland’s foremost Victorian writer.
Claire Harman, writer
Claire Harman, whose Robert Louis Stevenson Biography appeared in 2005, will soon provide an insight into the writer’s London period, taking John Singer Sargent’s 1885 portrait of Stevenson as a starting point to her one-night-only discussion of the relationship between nineteenth century literature and visual culture.
John Singer Sargent: artwork at the National Portrait Gallery
Having painted Stevenson’s portrait a year before the publication of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Sargent noted that the writer ‘seemed to me the most intense creature I had ever met’, the finished picture reminding Stevenson himself of ‘a caged maniac’ pacing his study and fidgeting with his moustache. In keeping with the novel’s exploration of hidden personalities we highly anticipate Harman’s original take on Sargent’s painting, uncovering the ‘maniac’ beneath the portrait.
In association with the National Portrait Gallery, this Royal Society of Literature lecture also forms part of an extensive programme of events celebrating Sargent’s work, coinciding with the opening week of the gallery’s unmissable retrospective of the artist’s career, in which the picture of Stevenson can be seen in the context of Sargent’s ground-breaking portraiture. Harman’s lecture is sure to enrich the exhibition for anyone who attends.
| What | A Paradoxical Portrait, National Portrait Gallery |
| Where | National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place, London, WC2H 0HE | MAP |
| Nearest tube | Charing Cross (underground) |
| When |
On 19 Feb 15, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM |
| Price | £5-£7 |
| Website | Click here to book via Event Brite |
