Victoria Russell trained at Central Saint Martins and the Royal Academy and went on to win first prize at the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in 2000. Commenting on the process of painting Baroness Williams, Victoria said; '... many people had told me what a wonderful person she is and how much integrity she has…. I caught sight of how she lives her politics, how her politics are not separate from who she is and her daily life. It was a great privilege to work with Shirley and my intention throughout the process was to capture this integration of the political and the personal in the completed portrait.’ In 1993 Williams was raised to the peerage as Baroness Williams of Crosby, Stevenage in the County of Hertfordshire. Subsequently she became leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords from 2001 to 2004.