(SOLD OUT) The 2026 Bernard Osher Lecture: “Women Laughing” film screening and discussion Featuring Heather Cox Richardson and Liza Donnelly
When:
Sunday, April 19, 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
What happens when humor becomes a tool for history and resistance?
Join historian Heather Cox Richardson and writer/cartoonist Liza Donnelly for a screening of Donnelly’s new documentary, Women Laughing.
The film brings together a witty crew of New Yorker women cartoonists to discuss their passion and creative process as they draw together, and share a peek into the iconic magazine’s history.
After the film, the two friends and collaborators will take the stage to delve into politics, history, women's rights, and the nature of creative resistance. Expect insight, laughter, and a rare behind-the-scenes look at the intersection of art and activism.
Women Laughing film screening (37 minutes), followed by discussion.
Hannaford Hall in the Abromson Community Education Center at University of Southern Maine
88 Bedford St, Portland, ME 04101
Sold Out
Members $12
Public $18
Free for PMA Directors Circle Members
Liza Donnelly is a writer, director and award-winning cartoonist for The New Yorker Magazine. She directed and produced the documentary, WOMEN LAUGHING, about women cartoonists of The New Yorker, premiering in 2025. She contributes to The New York Times, The Washington Post and is the author of 18 books, most recently, Very Funny Ladies: The New Yorker’s Women Cartoonists. Donnelly publishes a daily newsletter, Seeing Things, on politics, culture and humor.
Donnelly’s TED talk, “Drawing On Humor For Change” was translated into 42 languages and viewed over 1.5 million times. She has spoken at the United Nations in New York and Geneva; The New Yorker Festival; SXSW; TEDx, universities, NGOs and corporate venues in the US and abroad, and is a Cultural Envoy for the US State Department. Donnelly was the first cartoonist to be granted access on-location to live-draw the Academy Awards.
A Vassar College Visiting Scholar, Barnard College Leadership Fellow, she is a recipient of an honorary PhD from University of Connecticut.
Heather Cox Richardson is an author and a historian of nineteenth century America, specializing in politics and economics. Her nightly newsletter, Letters from an American, reaches over six million readers.
Heather’s award-winning books span subjects from the Civil War and Reconstruction to the Gilded Age, the American West and the history of the Republican Party through the Trump administration. She is the author, most recently, of the best-selling Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America. Jane Mayer has called the book “a vibrant, and essential history of America's unending, enraging and utterly compelling struggle since its founding to live up to its own best ideals.”
She hosts a video series, Journey to American Democracy, which streams on YouTube and Instagram. Her articles and reviews have been published in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and The Guardian, among other outlets.
ABOUT THE FILM In Women Laughing, longtime New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly sets out to explore her lifelong passion for women’s humor and cartooning by speaking, laughing, and drawing with a diverse group of remarkable women who create cartoons for the iconic magazine. Inspired by her acclaimed book Very Funny Ladies and Liza’s own biography, the film looks at how far women have come in a field historically dominated by men. Women Laughing includes intimate conversations with some of the most celebrated and groundbreaking cartoonists at The New Yorker including Roz Chast, Emily Flake, Sarah Akinterinwa, Liana Fink, Amy Hwang, and Bishakh Som. Liza also speaks with Emma Allen, the magazine’s first female cartoon editor. During a dynamic group roundtable discussion with ten cartoonists, we also meet artists Emily Sanders Hopkins, Maggie Larson, Arenza Pena-Popo and Victoria Roberts.
Together, they reflect on what drives them, the obstacles they’ve faced, their creative processes, and much more. The film also journeys back in time to the earliest days of The New Yorker, a magazine founded in 1925 by journalists Harold Ross and Jane Grant. Surprisingly, the very first issue featured a cartoon by a woman, Brooklyn native Ethel Plummer. And there were several other women drawing in those early days. Women Laughing features some of their pioneering work and reveals that by the 1950s women cartoonists had all but disappeared from the magazine, not significantly returning until the late 1970s. A hundred years since its founding, the cartoons of The New Yorker remain the benchmark of the form, beloved around the world. And the magazine has seen tremendous progress. Today half of the artists identify as female or non-binary, and many more people of color are joining the community, bringing cartoons to new audiences. Women Laughing offers a unique look at how women cartoonists, past and present, have used single panel drawings to express their lived experiences. The film is ultimately a joyful celebration of women, art, and the creative spirit.
The annual Bernard Osher Lecture Series is made possible by the Peggy and Harold Osher Endowment at the Portland Museum of Art. Since 1988, the Bernard Osher Lecture Series has been the PMA's flagship annual event, welcoming visionary cultural leaders, scholars, and thinkers to Maine to share their insights and experiences with museum audiences.
For more information, please contact Louisa Donelson, Director of Programming and Events ldonelson@portlandmuseum.org
