The Importance Of Portraiture: In Conversation With Elvy Morton And Yvadney Davis

In 2026, Leicester Museum and Art Gallery’s reinvigorated collection of artworks and archival objects will go on display, including the recent acquisition of The Inimitable Mrs Morton, a portrait of Mrs Elvy Morton by Yvadney Davis, commissioned by Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage for 100 Black Women Who Have Made A Mark.Elvy Morton is a pillar of Leicester’s Caribbean community.

Alongside challenging local organisations to improve Black representation, she has consistently supported education for children and young people.

As the founding chair of Leicester Caribbean Carnival, she has helped to shape the cultural calendar of the city.Yvadney Davis is a Caribbean British contemporary figurative artist from South London.

Her work is a love letter to the Windrush Generation of her grandparents and its descendants, combining a love of painting with iconic design elements of the ‘West Indian front room’ to explore memory, belonging and identity.

She was a semi-finalist on Portrait Artist of the Year in 2023 and a recipient of the Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Prize in 2025.To celebrate the portrait in its new permanent home, Pawlet Brookes MBE, CEO and Artistic Director of Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage and the curator behind 100 Black Women Who Have Made A Mark brings together Mrs Elvy Morton and Yvadney Davis for a special in conversation to celebrate the portrait’s new permanent home.

Together, they reflect on the significance of portraiture in documenting Black British history and why it is essential that galleries and museums continue to add to their collection in order to safeguard the stories of the communities that surround them.Image Credit Inimitable Mrs Morton.

Portrait of Mrs Elvy Morton by Yvadney Davis (2024).

Charcoal, acrylic and gold ink on wallpaper.

Purchased from Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage, commissioned for 100 Black Women Who Have Made A Mark with assistance from Leicester Museums and Galleries Trust (2025)