A County Durham town is celebrating International Women's Day with four exhibitions in venues across the town.
Auckland Castle, Bishop Auckland Town Hall, and The Auckland Project's community venue, No. 42 have opened exhibitions Missing Women and With Dinah on March 8, International Women's Day. Missing Women is inspired by Francisco de Zurbarán’s celebrated series of biblical paintings, Jacob and His Twelve Sons, which have hung in Auckland Castle’s Long Dining Room for more than 250 years.
Now for the first time they will be joined by the women in their lives who have spent the best part of 4,000 years going unnoticed. Five professional artists (Jilly Johnston, Lady Kitt, Leanne Pearce, Lizzie Lovejoy and Edwina Kung) were each commissioned to paint a life-size portrait of one of the women: Leah and Rachel (sisters to each other, cousins to Jacob as well as being his wives); Zilpah and Bilhah (potentially half-sisters to Leah and Rachel, their servants and Jacob’s concubines); and Dinah (the daughter of Leah and Jacob).
