A portrait of General Dame Sharon Nesmith, the Army’s highest-ranking woman, will be displayed among paintings of other high profile women next week.
The Empowering Her exhibition features figures like Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was detained in an Iranian jail for six years and Zoe Stratford, the Red Roses Captain who led the team to victory in the Women’s Rugby World Cup.
Space scientist, educator and TV presenter Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock is another whose portrait appears in the show.
Gen Nesmith, the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, began her Army career in 1992 when she was commissioned into the Royal Corps of Signals. She served in Germany, the Balkans and Iraq and went on to become the first woman to command a Brigade.
Her portrait was commissioned by the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, which said it stood as a symbol of perseverance, breaking barriers, and empowering women in leadership roles.
All the paintings in the exhibition are by Caroline de Peyrecave, a member of the Society of Women Artists. She said: “For years I’ve noticed how women’s achievements are softened, sidelined, or quietly absorbed into the background.
“Even for famous women, like the ones celebrated in the show, their role is often narrowed down to what they have achieved on the world stage – but as a woman, they are all holding down family, societal expectations, physical challenges, personal insecurities and ordinary life quietly and repeatedly.
“The show is not just a celebration of the women I have painted, although they are extraordinary, it is a show bringing visibility to all women – their roles in society and their unseen, and often unnoticed, private lives.”
Empowering Her explores recognition, representation and power, questioning whose stories are recorded, whose leadership is acknowledged, and whose experiences are overlooked.
The exhibition runs from 4 March to 14 March at The Gallery, Green & Stone, London SW3.