Thunderclap: A memoir of art and life and sudden death is something of a companion piece to Laura Cumming’s previous book, On Chapel Sands. It weaves together Cumming’s love for Dutch Golden Age art and her relationship with her Scottish artist father in an intimate yet epic look at identity, memory, and mortality.

This richly illustrated talk will run all the way from Rembrandt and Vermeer to the painting by Carol Fabritius with which Cumming first fell in love in her twenties.

Thunderclap, shortlisted for the inaugural Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, was The Saltire Book of the Year 2024. Laura has been Chief Art Critic of The Observer since 1999.