The Milein Cosman Annual Lecture on Drawing at the Slade

In 2021 the Slade School of Fine Art, in collaboration with the Cosman Keller Trust, established the Milein Cosman Scholarship for Drawing, marking the 2021 centenary of Milein Cosman’s birth, and the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Slade, where Milein Cosman herself studied in the 1940s.

Three years later, the Slade and the Trust established the Milein Cosman Annual Lecture on Drawing, as part of their joint wish to support the public understanding and appreciation of the art of drawing in all its forms.  Each year, a distinguished artist or art historian is invited to talk on an aspect of drawing of their choosing, and the event is open to the public free of charge.

The lectures are all recorded and can be viewed here online — see below.

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The 2026 Milein Cosman lecturer was the renowned artist Maggi Hambling, who appeared in conversation with the writer and critic (and Cosman Keller Trustee) James Cahill, discussing the central role of drawing in her practice. Relentlessly inventive, and working in many different media, Hambling has long been recognised as one of Britain’s leading artists. Although best known for her virtuoso paintings of nature, her psychologically acute portraits, and her often-controversial public sculpture, it is drawing that has formed a constant throughout Hambling’s work. To this day she begins work every morning with an ink drawing, made ‘blind’ with her left hand, ‘like a pianist doing his scales to get into that energy and movement’. In their discussion, she and Cahill explored her drawing practice throughout her life: ‘Drawing is the most intimate thing an artist does: it’s like handwriting. The fundamental thing of everything I do is my drawing.’

The 2025 lecture was given by the art historian and curator Susan Owens, whose lecture Places of the Mind, Portraits of the Soul discussed the role of drawing in soul-searching and taking stock. Dr Owens examined in particular the way in which the artists Jonathan Richardson and John Constable both used drawing to pursue projects of intense introspection at significant moments of their lives. Dr Owens is currently preparing her new book on Constable to be published by Thames & Hudson for his 250th anniversary in 2026, and her latest book The Story of Drawing: An Alternative History of Art is available here.

The inaugural Milein Cosman Lecture was given in 2024 by the artist and writer Liz Rideal, Professor of Fine Art at the Slade, where she has been teaching for over 30 years. Professor Rideal’s lecture, Rules Flouted, Rules Obeyed discussed the vivid and varied history of drawing at the Slade, on which she has a wealth of information following her recent 150th anniversary book, available online here.