Conversation Pieces

“Conversation piece” was the name given in the eighteenth century to an informal group portrait. Magdalen possesses several fine examples with Fellows as subjects.

The most recent was a portrait commissioned in 2013 from the photographer Chloe Dewe Mathews. Earlier conversation pieces did not show any of the women members and the photograph was commissioned to rectify this. It shows Laurie Maguire, Susan Iversen, Alison Etheridge, Christine Ferdinand, Lizzie Fricker, Clare Harris, and Shearer West, in the Colonnade of the New Buildings.

This painting by Alan Sorrell is from the summer of 1967 and shows Fellows enjoying dessert in the Summer Common Room. From left to right are: P. Johnson, C.A. Cooke, A.W. Raitt, C. Grayson, C.G. Hardie, R.S. Stanier, H.M. Sinclair, G.N.C. Crawford, and B.B. Lloyd.

This 1954 painting by Alan Sorrell also shows Fellows enjoying dessert, this time in the Senior Common Room which is used in the winter months. From left to right are A.W. Raitt, C.G. Hardie, A.W. Adams, G. Ryle, T.S.R. Boase, G.R. Driver, J.A.W. Bennett, J.H.E. Griffiths, and C.S. Lewis.