Rebecca Fortnum

Rebecca Fortnum (born 1963) is a British artist, writer, and academic.

Fortnum studied English at Corpus Christi College in Oxford before gaining an MFA at Newcastle University. In 2009, she became Reader and Pathway Leader of Fine Art (Visual Art) at Camberwell College of Arts, one of London's leading art-education institutions. She was Professor of Fine Art at Middlesex University, London. until 2016 and is currently Professor of Fine Art at the Royal College of Art in London and Founding Editor of the Journal of Contemporary Painting published by Intellect.

Fortnum was born in London in 1963. She currently lives and works in London as well. Fortnum, who primarily creates paintings, has exhibited in England and internationally, and has received grants and travel awards including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation; the British Council; the Arts Council of England; the British School in Rome and the Art and Humanities Research Council.

She has also conducted academic research and written extensively about artistic practice, especially the practice of contemporary women artists. Her visual art practices include painting, drawing, printmaking, and curating.

The research that Fortnum conducts falls into three different categories that include documenting artists’ processes, a visual art practice, and fine art pedagogic research. In 2008 she was appointed to be the international lead artist for Trade in Ireland and began to write about the role of ‘not knowing’ within the creative process, publishing On Not Knowing; how artists think with Elizabeth Fisher in 2013. Her solo exhibition ''Self Contained was at the Freud Museum London in 2013 and was accompanied by a book published by RGAP. Fortnum has a specialized interest in women artists, which resulted in publishing a book called Contemporary British Women Artists in 2007. In this she interviewed artists for BBC Radio 4’s Woman's Hour.