First Women

2018 – a significant date for women – marking 100 years of Women’s Suffrage, but for one woman this landmark is far more than that. Renowned photographer Anita Corbin poses the question: How will women be remembered over the past 100 years? What have they achieved in the fields of Sport, Science, Politics, the Arts and Education? And who were these remarkable “first” women, what did they look like?

Many are familiar with the likenesses of Elizabeth 1, Jane Austen and even Boudicca, but none of us are sure that these are really a true representation of those amazing women. A photographic portrait gives the viewer a much clearer depiction of the outer being, but also provides many clues as to the person within, and when it is part of a collection it becomes something else again - a representation of the pioneering spirit of womankind that has infiltrated all aspects of our lives.

In the years leading up to 2018 Anita Corbin will shoot and collect iconic portraits of 21st century women who have achieved the landmark title “First Woman” across a range of fields. In 2018 Anita plans to launch the First Women travelling exhibition throughout the UK in celebration of 20th and 21st century women, creating a magnificent archive for our daughters and their future progeny. The exhibition will feature three types of photography: portraiture, documentary and archive and will be linked to an interactive website as well as the publication of a beautiful photographic book. Each unique portrait will feature extended captions and introductory essays.

“No man is an Island” and no woman truly acts alone and so complementing the key portraits will be an archive collection of photographs of women from the past 100 years showing women at work, rest and play and creating an historical context for the main portraits. Alongside this historical archive Anita plans to put together documentary images of ordinary women just being women – at home, at work and at leisure.

First Women is the project that Anita has waited all her life to create. Her passion was born out of work she began in the early eighties – her Visible Girls portfolio was symbolic of women’s new found freedom to be whoever they wanted to be – and fired by years spent working as a top female photographer for The Sunday Times and The Observer when she was often sent to cover “human interest” stories involving women. All this experience has culminated in Anita’s vision – the creation of a legacy for future generations of women to enable them to understand and appreciate the achievements of their forebears - and perhaps even to laugh incredulously that once upon a time women were regarded as second class citizens without a vote.

Press Releases

SW based photographer awarded Trailblazers’ commission

Release Date: 11/03/2013

In the month that marks International Women’s Day, NE’s Discovery Museum launches new exhibition exploring achievements of women in science and technology & commissions four new portraits from renowned photographer Anita Corbin

South West based photographer Anita Corbin has been chosen to undertake a very important commission on behalf of the North East region’s science and industry museum, Discovery Museum in Newcastle. ...

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Abbey Burton, First Woman to set a British Record title of 100% perfect score in Olympic Trap Clay Shooting. From the series First Women by Anita Corbin, March 2013.

Photographer celebrates International Women’s Day in 2013 with two new portraits for 2018 project marking 100 years of women’s s

Release Date: 07/03/2013

Prominent South West photographer Anita Corbin has carried out a very special assignment to mark this year’s International Women’s Day on Friday, 8 March 2013. She has photographed two outstanding Somerset women who were the first to achieve a particular milestone in their chosen professions. The two women who will be included in Anita’s groundbreaking project First Women are Abbey Burton, youngest woman to win World Cup Gold in the Women's Olympic Trap at Shooting (May 2012) and Charlotte Budd, the first woman to ride in the Grand National (1977).

Anita, who with her husband is owner of Wellington based Corbin O’Grady Studio, says, “I was approached by ITV West who were looking to mark International Women’s Day by highlighting some of the inspirational women, both senior and junior, who live and work in our county.” ...

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Charlotte Budd, First Woman to ride in the Grand National 1977. From the series First Women by Anita Corbin, July 2010

Somerset photographer celebrates International Women’s Day with two new portraits for 2018 project marking 100 years of women’s

Release Date: 06/03/2013

Somerset photographer Anita Corbin has carried out a very special assignment to mark this year’s International Women’s Day on Friday, 8 March 2013. She has photographed two prominent Somerset women who were the first to achieve a particular milestone in their chosen professions.

The two women who will be included in Anita’s groundbreaking project First Women are Charlotte Budd, the first woman to ride in the Grand National (1977) and Abbey Burton, first and youngest woman to win World Cup Gold in the Women's Olympic Trap at Shooting (May 2012)....

Read the full release Somerset photographer celebrates International Women’s Day with two ...

Portrait of First British Woman to win Nobel Prize added to National Portrait Gallery Collection

Release Date: 10/02/2012

Two years after Somerset-based photographers Anita Corbin and John O’Grady of Corbin O’Grady Studio saw 11 of their portraits on display at the prestigious National Portrait Gallery; Anita and John will now see another of their portraits depicting famous British scientists join the gallery’s Photographs Collection.

Professor Dorothy Hodgkin was the First and only British Woman ever to have won a Nobel Prize for science, for her work on vitamins, Among her most influential discoveries were the confirmation of the structures of penicillin, vitamin B12 and insulin, and she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1964). ...

Read the full release Portrait of First British Woman to win Nobel