Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the artist Maggi Hambling. Above all else, she is known as a painter of people. Over the past 30 years she has painted George Melly, Stephen Fry and Michael Gambon among many others. But in the early years, her subjects were not well known; instead they were characters she saw on the streets or in the bars of South London. People whose faces she would commit to memory so that she could draw them when she returned to her studio.

She was the first artist to be given a residency at the National Gallery and in 1995 won the Jerwood Prize. But although she remains in great demand as a portrait painter, her work provokes controversy too - her tribute to Benjamin Britten, an enormous scallop shell standing on the shore at Aldeburgh, continues to divide opinion in the town.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Runnin' Wild by Marilyn Monroe Book: The Complete Works of Just William by Richmal Crompton Luxury: A wine cellar from All Soul's, Oxford

A Season of Spirituality