In 2022 Lela Harris was commissioned by The Judges’ Lodgings Museum to create a set of portraits of real Black individuals from Lancaster’s history whose given names alone we know. Imogen Tyler will discuss with artist Lela Harris the challenge of creating paintings without benefit of any visual references, using only contemporary written sources such as descriptions in contemporary advertisements for ‘runaways’ escaping enslavement.

For this unique event, The Judges’ Lodgings Museum has kindly allowed us an early viewing of one of the six portraits, which from 30 March will hang in the museum alongside portraits of those who profited from slavery, the slave trade or West Indies trade by renowned contemporary artists, including George Romney and Joseph Wright of Derby.