Aimee Ng: Fashion and Art in Gainsborough's World

On Feb. 11, 2026, in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Auditorium, Aimee Ng delivered her lecture, "Fashion and Art in Gainsborough's World." Ng, the Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator and organizer of the special exhibition Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture, explored the rich and complex world of fashion in eighteenth-century Britain. She examined how the very concept of fashion was understood during this dynamic period, how painted portraits themselves moved in and out of fashion, and how deliberate sartorial choices in portraiture could subvert and transgress boundaries of social class.