Maggi Hambling was born in 1945 in Sudbury, Suffolk, and studied painting and drawing at various art schools including the Slade in London. She’s known for her striking portraits: she has painted the likes of Dorothy Hodgkin and Andy Murray – and much-discussed public sculptures commemorating Oscar Wilde, Benjamin Britten and Mary Wollstonecraft. OOO LA LA, her show with friend and fellow Suffolk resident Sarah Lucas, has just opened at Sadie Coles HQ and Frankie Rossi Art Projects in London, running until 24 January 2026. A new monograph of her work, Maggi Hambling, is published by Rizzoli New York.
Music
I Inside the Old Year Dying by PJ Harvey
I always work in silence, but music is an important presence in my life. PJ Harvey’s last album, I Inside the Old Year Dying, and her live show of it at the Roundhouse in Camden, London, in 2023, conjured extraordinary worlds, so much so that I felt compelled to paint the performance. She’s so tiny and the Roundhouse is so enormous, but the way she commanded the whole thing was extraordinary. She seems to speak to the heart when she sings. And her songs are very visual, so they speak immediately to me.
Fiction
The Violet Hour by James Cahill
James Cahill’s debut novel Tiepolo Blue was brilliant and his second novel, The Violet Hour, is equally excellent. Both novels explore what people nebulously describe as the “art world” but with great sensitivity, asking why artists are compelled to make art and how we respond to and in some cases are driven to collect art. The artist it follows is completely convincing, as is his agent. Cahill is a writer who makes one care for his characters – one can feel compassion for the monsters who, in lesser hands, would be two dimensional.
Restaurant
Juliet, Stroud
I went recently with a group of friends, including Sarah Lucas, to see our work in the rather amazing (and very underground) Clearwell Caves beneath the Forest of Dean. We then went to Juliet, in Stroud, for dinner and the food was very good. There were so many courses I lost count, but each one was delicious. There seemed to be about a thousand waiters waiting on us, and nothing seemed to be a problem to them. It had a wonderful atmosphere. I don’t know if it sounds corny to say that, but it did.
Bar
Larry’s, London WC2
Larry’s, in the historic vaults below the National Portrait Gallery, serves the best cocktails ever, including the Coffin created by [bar manager] Salvatore Distefano for my 80th birthday. It’s a mixture of Laphroaig whisky and the essential syrup of Special Brew, and it’s a really good drink. I was warned to have only one of them, but I had at least three and a half and I felt absolutely fine. I do like drinking Special Brew. Everyone says they drank it when they were young, but I drink it now at 80, as I approach middle age. You don’t really need to eat. It seems to be totally nourishing in every way. Winston Churchill and Benjamin Britten were keen on it too.
Film
Some Like It Hot (1959, dir. Billy Wilder)
Tony Curtis’s voice, which impersonates Cary Grant’s, is sublime. Marilyn Monroe is sublime, the kiss between her and Curtis in drag in sublime. The last line, “nobody’s perfect”, is the best line in film history. I just love Some Like It Hot. I’ve recorded it, and whenever I feel really low, I put it on, so I watch it two or three times a year.
Sport
Tennis
My whole family played sport: rugger, hockey, football, badminton and tennis. The only one to stick for me was tennis, which I played badly but with great relish until earlier this year when I began to feel dizzy. I miss it dreadfully. Tennis is very close to painting: eye, hand and heart. My hero Andy Murray had begun to collect my work and so it happened that I painted his portrait, now in the National Portrait Gallery. I don’t care much for green but it had to be Wimbledon and he had to wear his whites, so there it was and now there it is.
Place
Suffolk
My studios in London and Suffolk are where real life happens, the rest is just the rest. If I had to choose between Suffolk and London, then Suffolk would be it – there, one has a sense of a whole day: the colours of the dawn, the early morning, the late morning, the early afternoon, the late afternoon, dusk and whisky, the evening, the night; whereas in contrast London is monotone. And art started for me in Suffolk and I think where something begins is important. I live about seven miles inland from Aldeburgh on the wild side of Suffolk.
Photographs by Julian Simmons, MAR/Capital Pictures, Ed Schofield, Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images, Clive Brunskill/Getty Images, Alamy