Sunday 28 June 2026, 4.00pm
The Gibberd Garden, Marsh Lane, Harlow, Essex, CM17 0NA

Darren Coffield will be exploring his book, Hen Mistress of Mayhem: A Portrait of Henrietta Moraes, providing  a unique insight into 1950-60s Bohemia and the key players of the fashion, music and art scene.

Hen, Mistress of Mayhem takes you to the epicentre of Soho’s Golden Age; stage by stage it forms a complete guide to a hell-raising companion.

Uniquely told from the viewpoint of the women who knew her, including Maggi Hambling, not the famous male artists who painted her.

Tickets:
£15 / £12 concessions (students, under 27s and unwaged)
or both events for £25 / £18 concessions

Box Office: essexbookfestival.org.uk or Mercury Theatre 01206 573948

Event Information

💬 The event will include an audience Q&A session.
📚 Copies of the book will be available to purchase on the day.
🖊️ After the event there will be an opportunity to get the book signed by the author.
🪑 Seats are unallocated.
📸 We will be filming and taking photos at this event.

Ticket Deal

Make an afternoon of it with our Gibberd Garden ticket deal – Tickets £15 per event or both events for £25 (Concessions £12 per event or both events for £18).
Discount automatically applied at checkout when tickets for both events are booked:

2.00pm – Maggi Hambling in conversation with James Cahill
4.00pm – Darren Coffield, Hen, Mistress of Mayhem

Darren Coffield

Photo of Darren Coffield © Darren Coffield

Darren Coffield studied at Goldsmiths College, Camberwell School of Art, and the Slade School of Art in London, where he received his Bachelor of Fine Art in 1993. He has exhibited widely in the company of many leading artists, including Damien Hirst, Howard Hodgkin, Patrick Caulfield and Gilbert and George.

In 2014, his contributions were recognised by ‘100 Painters of Tomorrow’. He is the author of Tales from the Colony Room: Soho’s Lost Bohemia (2021) and Queens of Bohemia (2024).

Hen, Mistress of Mayhem
A Portrait of Henrietta Moraes
Darren Coffield, foreword by Sarah Lucas

Paints a vivid portrait of a Bohemian legend.

Henrietta Moraes first discovered Soho when she was eighteen – or so she tells us. Her favourite sport was social climbing (heaven knows she enjoyed the exercise) and she was good at it, going to all the right parties and simply gate-crashing others.

From the summit of the 1950s bohemian scene she surveyed the life and times of those who broke all the rules, such as the artists Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon (for whom she became a muse).

But that’s not all she did – as a key counter-culture figure in the 1960s Chelsea Set, no other woman was more indefatigable in becoming a bohemian legend.

Through Hen, you’ll learn how to steal your best friend’s boyfriend; enchant and ensnare a husband; blossom into a magnificent muse; dress like a comic book superhero; become a connoisseur of every illicit drug known to medical science and dose a Rolling Stones concert with them; join the caravan set and head along the gypsy trail in search of the Holy Grail, before rematerialising as the minder for a mind-blowing pop icon…

Along the way you’ll indulge in the gentle art of cadging drinks; the feline felony of cat burglary; the canny craft of charity shop shoplifting and the haphazardness of steamy sex in second-hand bookshops.

Hen, Mistress of Mayhem takes you to the epicentre of Soho’s Golden Age; stage by stage it forms a complete guide to a hell-raising companion.

Buy a copy of the book from bookshop.org. – released 02 April 2026

The post Hen, Mistress of Mayhem: A Portrait of Henrietta Moraes appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

Sunday 28 June 2026, 2.00pm
The Gibberd Garden, Marsh Lane, Harlow, Essex, CM17 0NA

Maggi Hambling, one of the most influential artists of her generation, will be talking with author, writer and art critic James Cahill about a new monograph of her work recently published by Rizzoli New York. Join us for an afternoon to celebrate and shine a light on Hambling’s fearless spirit and trailblazing art.

Tickets:
£15 / £12 concessions (students, under 27s and unwaged)
or both events for £25 / £18 concessions

Box Office: essexbookfestival.org.uk or Mercury Theatre 01206 573948

Part of our Harlow weekend – Essex Book Festival is delighted to be heading to Harlow for a weekend of writing workshops, author and artist talks, family games, and poetry. Find out more at essexbookfestival.org.uk/harlow-weekend/.

Event Information

💬 The event will include an audience Q&A session.
📚 Copies of the book will be available to purchase on the day.
🖊️ After the event there will be an opportunity to get the book signed by the author.
🪑 Seats are unallocated.
📸 We will be filming and taking photos at this event.

Ticket Deal

Make an afternoon of it with our Gibberd Garden ticket deal:
Tickets £15 per event or both events for £25 (Concessions £12 per event or both events for £18).
Discount automatically applied at checkout when tickets for both events are booked:

2.00pm – Maggi Hambling in conversation with James Cahill
4.00pm – Darren Coffield, Hen, Mistress of Mayhem

Maggi Hambling

Photo of Maggi Hambling © Laura Bailey

Maggi Hambling (born 1945) is a contemporary British painter and sculptor whose work has been subject of many solo museum exhibitions since 1980.

Maggi Hambling

Foreword by Cecily Brown, Contributions by Sean Burns and James Cahill and Hugo Chapman and Wenny Teo and Sheena Wagstaff

The definitive illustrated monograph of trailblazing British artist, queer icon, and pioneer Maggi Hambling, on the occasion of her eightieth birthday.

Featuring an exceptional range of reproductions of Maggi Hambling’s work, including unique archival materials, this authoritative and visually stunning new volume offers the most comprehensive account of Hambling’s oeuvre to date.

Essays by leading critics, curators, and art historians trace Hambling’s formative period from her time at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in the early 1960s, to her rise to fame in the ’80s, the centrality of drawing to her eclectic practice, and the virtuoso series of paintings that have defined her output in recent decades.

Hambling’s work and legacy are explored in vivid detail here, emphasizing her importance to British art over the past half century, as well as her singular place in the global sphere of contemporary art. Love, death, and remembrance are revealed as her enduring themes, and are reflected in her intimate portraits as much as her epic-scaled evocations of war, the climate emergency, and the natural world.

Shining a light on Hambling’s fearless spirit, this tour-de-force publication takes you deep into the heart and mind of one of the most influential and provocative artists of her generation.

Buy a copy of the book from bookshop.org.

The post Maggi Hambling – SOLD OUT appeared first on Essex Book Festival.