Art & Hue

Diana Rigg

There’s nothing like a Dame, so the song goes, and the lyric certainly applied to Dame Diana Rigg.

Since bursting onto TV screens in the 1960s as Mrs Peel in “The Avengers“, she’s been an inspirational role model across the world.

During an era when women were expected to defer to the superiority of men, Emma Peel proved an equal, or a superior, frequently outwitting them intellectually and beating them physically – Diana Rigg even made the record books as the first female to use the martial art Karate on television.

Alongside her impressive film and TV appearances, she had a distinguished theatre career of performances filled with powerful roles, including her award-winning turns in “Medea” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”.

The only “Bond Girl” strong-minded enough to marry James Bond, she continued to portray women who know their own mind as the fierce Lady Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones and the Duchess of Buccleuch in Victoria.

Art & Hue had the pleasure of meeting Diana Rigg in October 2015 when the BFI invited Art & Hue to install a pop-up exhibition of The Avengers pop art to coincide with a screening of “The House That Jack Built” followed by an on-stage interview with the actress.

It was great to meet her, present her with the pop art to take with her (which thankfully she loved!), & it’s wonderful to know that she had them.

Dame Diana Rigg sadly passed in September 2020. Thank you Diana, for Mrs Peel and an incredible theatre career, you will be sorely missed.