The award-winning novelist Dame Antonia Byatt talks to novelist Philip Hensher about portraiture. As someone who is afraid of images of herself and refuses to look at herself on television, she recalls the experience of having an abstract portrait of herself painted by Patrick Heron.  The portrait was painted in Heron’s St. Ives studio, and the sitter said: ‘'What I wanted was the presence of the idea of me.' When portraits are often judged solely on their likeness to the subject, how do images painted from the imagination relate to portraiture?

Dame Antonia Byatt is an author, critic and editor whose novels include Possession and The Children’s Book.  Her writing explores art and art history, literary and social history, and philosophy.

Philip Hensher has published a number of novels, is a regular contributor to Granta, a columnist and book reviewer for newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent.