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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Here's Looking at Me

The Essay: Here's Looking at Me: Episode 3: Germaine Greer

Here's Looking at Me

Episode 3

Episode 3: Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Here's Looking at Me, Germaine GreerClose menu

Germaine Greer on the collaborative friendship which led to Paula Rego's portrait of her.

Writer and academic Germaine Greer discusses sitting for a portrait by Paula Rego. She describes the friendship and respect that made the painting possible.

Paula Rego's portrait of Germaine Greer is one of the most popular in the National Portrait Gallery. Greer describes the friendship and respect that made the portrait possible. She wouldn't have sat for a portrait had it NOT been Paula, whose work Greer hugely admires. 
Greer explains her misgivings about portraiture which she considers 'a minor art form at best...made by artists working in a self-limiting genre'. Worst of all are portraits of women - which are vapid or flattering or soulless. 
What then was the key to the success of this portrait and how did it come about?

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Series exploring five paintings hanging in the National Portrait Gallery in London

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Episode 3: Germaine Greer

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