‘A Modern Arrangement’: A Discussion on Flower Paintings & Modernism

About the Speakers

Olivia Meehan is an art historian and teaching specialist with a focus on slow looking and contemplative pedagogies. She received her MPhil and PhD in the History of Art from the University of Cambridge. She has also trained at the V&A Museum London (International Initiatives) in Creating Innovative Learning Programmes. Since graduating she has worked in museums and galleries, and as a lecturer and tutor in the History of Art, both in Australia and abroad. She is a regular contributor to The World of Interiors, TOAST magazine, and Blumenhaus magazine Paris. Olivia is the author of Slow Looking: The Art of Nature published by Thames & Hudson (2025).

Rebecca Birrell is a Research Affiliate at The Fitzwilliam Museum, where she was Curator of 19th and 20th Century Paintings and Drawings between 2021-2023. She is currently a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at University of St Andrews. Her first book, This Dark Country: Women Artists, Still Life and Intimacy in the Early 20th Century was published by Bloomsbury in 2021. Her second book, a novel, Venus, Vanishing, will be published by Picador in the UK and Henry Holt & Company in the US in 2026. She has occupied curatorial positions at the Charleston Trust, the British Museum and the Jewish Museum.