Pitzhanger to Display Nicole Fahri's Ceramic Bust Collection
J'accuse features depictions of victims of miscarriages of justice
Nicole Farhi in her studio with the busts. Photo by © Iona Wolff, 2025
March 6, 2025
A big-name fashion designer who now devotes her time to sculpture is to have her work displayed at the Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery.
J’Accuse…! is a collection 25 hand-sculpted ceramic busts by Nicole Fahri each depicting victims of miscarriages of justice from around the world over the past 125 years.
Running from 19 March to 15 June, the exhibition takes its name from Émile Zola’s famous open letter that exposed the wrongful conviction of Captain Alfred Dreyfus in France in 1898. Inspired by Dreyfus’s case, Farhi has spent the past two years researching and sculpting figures from around the world who have been unjustly accused, from Timothy Evans, whose wrongful execution helped bring about the abolition of capital punishment in Britain, to Andrew Malkinson, who spent 17 years in prison before his conviction was overturned in 2023, leading to the resignation of Helen Pitcher, Chair of the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
Nicole Farhi CBE is widely known for her eponymous fashion brand but has dedicated the past two decades to her artistic practice. Having trained under Jean Gibson and Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, she has exhibited at Gainsborough’s House and The Harley Gallery. A member of the Royal Society of Sculptors, she has often focused on the human form, and J’Accuse…! marks a new focus — one that uses portraiture to depict the victims behind cases that have made legal and political history.
Nicole Farhi said, “This latest series, which explores miscarriages of justice, is the most personal and deeply felt of all. These are the men and women to whom irrevocable wrong was done. The only thing anyone can now do is look them in the eye, see them plain, and commit them to memory. Not forgetting them is the greatest service we can offer.”
Clare Gough, Director of Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery, said, “Nicole Farhi’s work focuses on the people behind the headlines whose lives have been shaped by injustice. Pitzhanger provides a space where visitors can reflect on these important stories.”
J’Accuse…! will be accompanied by a programme of public events, including a conversation between Nicole Farhi and solicitor, advocate, and writer Anthony Julius. Julius is Deputy Chairman of Mishcon de Reya and is best known for representing Diana, Princess of Wales, in her divorce and Deborah Lipstadt in a landmark libel suit brought against her by Holocaust denier David Irving — later dramatised in the film Denial (2016), written by Farhi’s husband, David Hare. The date and ticket details of this event are to be announced soon.
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