Wendy Beckett

Wendy Beckett (born 25 February 1930), better known as Sister Wendy, is a British hermit, consecrated virgin, and art historian who became well known internationally during the 1990s when she presented a series of documentaries for the BBC on the history of art. Her programmes, like Sister Wendy's Odyssey and Sister Wendy's Grand Tour, often drew a 25 percent share of the British viewing audience. In 1997, Sister Wendy made her U.S. debut on public television and that same year The New York Times described her as "a sometime hermit who is fast on her way to becoming the most unlikely and famous art critic in the history of television." As of 2016, segments of these shows are still being aired on some PBS channels in the U.S.

Beckett was born in South Africa, and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, where her father was studying medicine. In 1946, she entered the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, a Roman Catholic congregation of Religious Sisters dedicated to education. She was sent to England where she completed her novitiate and then studied at St Anne's College, Oxford where she was awarded a congratulatory first class honours degree in English Literature.

Outside her academic work, she lived in a convent which maintained the strict code of silence typical in convents prior to the reforms following the Second Vatican Council (1962–65). After attending the Notre Dame College of Education (Liverpool) and earning a teaching diploma in 1954, she returned to South Africa to teach at Notre Dame Convent, a school for girls in Constantia, Cape Town, where she taught English and Latin. Later she moved to Johannesburg where she was appointed the superior of the local convent, while she also lectured at the University of the Witwatersrand.

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