Women heroes

Today it’s International Women’s Day. A perfect moment to honor all the special, strong, and inspiring women that came before us. British illustrator Rebecca Bradley pays tribute to her heroes—from Bessie Coleman to Coco Chanel —with colorful drawings.

“I’d never painted or drawn famous people before,” says Rebecca Bradley, a British illustrator who now lives in the American city of Baltimore and teaches 
at the Maryland Institute College of Art there. “Frankly, 
I was also a bit hesitant about it. Drawing such celebrities, it quickly becomes cliché, especially when they’ve been portrayed often.” Yet Bradley went ahead, the first time as a test assignment for a children’s book, and then because she developed a taste for it. “I shared the first illustrations on Instagram tagged under #womenheroes. These got such a positive response that I decided to make more.”