She Wears Her Heart on Her Sleeve: Portrait of Diana Souhami
This portrait was commissioned for The Women’s Art Collection by alumna Annie Bartlett and her partner Sandra Evans. Together they were keen to increase the representation of queer art within the Collection and to better reflect the wider contributions of lesbians in the artistic and literary life of the United Kingdom. The subject of the portrait is the writer Diana Souhami (b. 1940), known for her significant body of literary work including biographies of lesbian women such as writer and art collector Gertude Stein, publisher Sylvia Beach and socialite and author Violet Trefusis.
The artist, painter Sadie Lee, was keen to dress Souhami in masculine tailoring to parallel the style of the people she had written about, such as artists Romaine Brooks and Gluck. The sharp cut of the suit jacket is softened by the bright red heart cufflinks. The red is picked up again in the vibrant red lipstick. When asked how she felt about having her portrait painted, Diana said ‘When I grew up there was no vocabulary for lesbian identity – just a pall of silence. Sadie’s portrait of me runs counter to submission or exclusion’.
Read an interview with Sadie Lee, Diana Souhami and Annie Bartlett on page 58 of Dolphin.