LONDON.- From 8 to 18 October 2025, the Lavery Studio at Cromwell Place hosts La Selva Oscura: Scenes from a Polish Silver Birch Wood, an exhibition of new works by renowned British artist Emma Sergeant (b.1959).

Inspired by the silver birch trees that surround the artist’s studio in Poland, and the allegorical ‘dark forest’ which features in Canto 1 of Dante’s Inferno, the exhibition is centred around a large-scale triptych executed in charcoal, conte and gouache depicting horses and riders finding their way in the wood. It is complemented by six large studies of silver birches, as well as preparatory works relating to the trees and the cast of characters depicted, including four oil-on-copper paintings.

The culmination of a decade of work and experimentation, the exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with an introduction by Dr. Julian Raby, Director Emeritus of the National Museum of Asian Art of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. It is presented as an immersive installation created by veteran designer Charles Marsden-Smedley.

This is the first major exhibition of the artist’s work since a retrospective at the Tartuca Museum, Siena, in 2018. Most recognised for her powerful portraits and figurative paintings, Emma Sergeant was winner of the National Portrait Gallery Award in 1981 and official artist to HRH The Prince of Wales on tours of Egypt, Morocco, and Central Asia in 1995-96. She has undertaken many notable portrait commissions including Lord David Cecil, Lord Laurence Olivier, Valerie Eliot, Sir William Deakin, Bryan Adams, Jerry Hall and Raoni, Chief of the Kayapo.



Emma Sergeant: “My husband bought a farm in Poland about 12 years ago, 40km from the Ukrainian border near Zamość. I was inspired by the silver birches which grew all around us with the rapidity of the Brazilian jungle. So many farms had been abandoned on the land close to us and the silver birches hid any trace of them. In Eastern Europe they look so wistful as they grow out of dry golden grasses, whereas in England the contrast with the green grass is less romantic. They also reminded me of my favourite painting ‘L’intervento decisivo di Micheletto Attendolo da Cotignola’’ by Paolo Uccello; the lances of the knights catch the Florentine general Michele Attendolo as if in a spider’s web.

I became interested in the idea of holding people in the composition of silver birches. I tentatively started sketching them in the winter as, without leaves, you can appreciate the extraordinary texture of their bark. It was only when I was asked to illustrate a stanza from Dante’s Inferno for an exhibition in Siena that I realised what my silver birch project was about. I had the perfect picture for the opening stanza when Dante enters the dark wood. During the four years I worked on “La Selva Oscura”, my life took many strange twists and turns while I tried to make sense of my own dark wood. These works are unlike anything I’ve created before, and I’m very excited to be able to share them in such a resonant and meaningful space as Sir John Lavery’s studio.”

Emma Sergeant (b. 1959) is a celebrated British painter best known for her vivid portraits. She studied at Camberwell School of Art, 1978–9, and Slade School of Fine Art, 1979–83. In 1981 she won the Imperial Tobacco Award and the National Portrait Gallery Painting Competition. She had a first solo show at Agnew’s (1984), with others including Paintings from Afghanistan (1986), a subject repeated at Mona Bismarck Foundation, Paris (1987), Gods at the Newhouse Gallery, New York, USA, and Agnew’s (both 1996), Dolphins (1998) and From the Sea (1999), both at the Fine Art Society, Scenes from a Hittite Court, The Prince’s Foundation (2001), Shades of Grey (2004) at the Fine Art Society, and Touch the Spirit: A Retrospective at the Museum of the Contrada della Tartuca, Siena, Italy (2018). Sergeant was commissioned by the Municipality of Siena to paint Il Drappellone on silk, which was presented in the traditional ceremony for the Palio in Siena (2022).

Commissions included Lord David Cecil and Lord Laurence Olivier for the National Portrait Gallery, as well as a portrait of Sir William Deakin, for St Antony’s College, Oxford. Sergeant was the official artist with HRH The Prince of Wales on his Egyptian and Moroccan tour, 1995, and on his Central Asian Republics tour, 1996. She completed portraits of both HRH The Prince of Wales and HRH the Duke of York. Sergeant was born and lives in London.

Charles Marsden-Smedley (CMS) is a museum, exhibition and lighting designer with 40 years’ experience of working in the major public museums and galleries in London, throughout the UK and overseas. He first worked with Emma Sergeant when he designed HRH The Prince of Wales’s 50th birthday exhibition in Sir Christopher Wren’s Cartoon Gallery at Hampton Court; the first section of the exhibition was dedicated to artworks by artists who had accompanied HRH on state visits abroad. He later designed her exhibition Scenes from a Hittite Court which was held at The Prince’s Institute in 2001. CMS is delighted to be designing Emma’s exhibition in the Lavery Studio at Cromwell Place in October 2025. He first worked there designing the exhibition Every Object Tells a Story for Oliver Hoare in 2017. He subsequently designed the lighting for the whole Cromwell Place Arts Hub, as well as the exhibition The Natural World for Damian Hoare in 2021; and the exhibition for Bosch GmbH Igniting Minds: A celebration of 125 years business in the UK in 2023.

LOCATION: The Lavery Studio, 5 Cromwell Place, London SW7 2JE