The Chair’s Spot
Posted on Mar 06, 2024I read many books but very few of the authors are women. Up to now this is something that I had not actually been conscious of, but in my appreciation of art however, I can truly say that I am a devout fan of many women artists.Although my particular favourites are Laura Knight, Barbara Hepworth and Maggie Hambling, I welcome this opportunity to sing the praises of women artists everywhere, and identify those who I consider have contributed to the furtherance of modern art.
Women Who Shaped Modern Art
At the time when the Impressionists turned the tide of art towards Modernism, I think it is fair to say that art, like many other professions, was mostly in the domain of men. We all know the host of famous male artists, within the Impressionist movement, and although there were actually several women artists included, only two or three became instantly recognisable names alongside their male counterparts, and these I would suggest were Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot and Eva Gonzalès. Today however, there is no contest. We open art books and exhibition catalogues, look at the work on sale in galleries, the authors of textbooks, reviews etc. and we see as many women artists, curators, critics and academics as men. It is not my intention to enter into the debate on equality of the sexes, that’s for others, but I am interested in identifying, in my mind, which women artists helped to shape modern and contemporary art, and I am sure that there willnot be a reader that cannot add another name or two to my list. Limited space, however, restricts me to seven women artists, so few from so many.
Returning to the time of the Impressionists Berthe Morisot(1841-1895) was a French painter and printmaker who exhibited regularly with the Impressionists. She was the granddaughter of the important Rococo painter Jean-Honoré-Fragonard, and like other Impressionist artists she vowed never again to enter the French government sponsored Salon, thus being part of the Impressionists’ break away from tradition to found the modern art movement.
Woman at Her Toilette’ 1875-80 Oil on canvas
‘Reading’ 1873 Oil on fabric
Her paintings frequently depicted private moments eg. ‘Woman at Her Toilette’ 1875-80 and they also
included members of her family, particularly her sister Edma, ‘Reading’ 1873. Never commercially
successful during her lifetime, she nevertheless outsold Monet, Renoir and Sisley. *
*(https://www.britannica.com/biography/Berthe-Morisot)
Painter and printmaker Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) was born and educated in America, but in 1874 chose to live in Paris. Although sometimes referred to as the ‘American Impressionist from Pennsylvania’ she was inspired by Edgar Degas and Gustave Courbet, all three preferring unposed asymmetrical compositions. Sharing with the Impressionists
an interest in experimentation and in using bright colours inspired by the out-of-doors, she was a master of drawing and also innovative and inventive in exploiting the use of pastels, eventually creating many of her most important works in the medium. Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis
on the intimate bonds between mothers and children.
Mary Cassatt ‘Sketch of Mother Looking Down at Thomas’ c.1905 – 1915. Pastel
Also an artist who lived and worked in Paris was the Welsh born Gwen John (1876-1939) whose portraits of anonymous female sitters are rendered in a range of closely related tones, and she also produced a large number of paintings of interiors. Sadly Gwen was overshadowed by her famous brother Augustus, but her reputation grew steadily since her death. Through her independence her decision to live alone in Paris, her solid training, and the importance of her female friendships, Gwen John seemed to be the model of anew type of woman at the end of 19th century.
’A corner of the artists room in Paris 1907/09 Oil on Canvas
Laura Knight (1877-1970) is important as she forged success in the male-dominated British art establishment, paving the way for greater status and recognition for British women artists, in fact in 1936, she became the first woman since 1769 to be elected to full membership of the RA. She painted in oils and watercolour, but also worked in etching, engraving and dry point, embracing the English Impressionist style in the figurative realist tradition. She was a central figure in the famous Newlyn School, a colony of artists based in or near Newlyn, Cornwall, from the 1880s until the early twentieth century.
Knight’s work output was truly prolific and far too extensive to cover here, and so I will describe my favourite period of her career, when she was an official war artist in WW2. The three paintings below are personal favourites, and show figure painting with purpose and urgency. ‘A Balloon Site, Coventry’ 1943 portrays a group of mainly women working to launch a barrage balloon as part of the air defences of Coventry, whose industry was an important target for the Luftwaffe. ‘Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech Ring’ 1943 is often stated as Knight’s best-known portrait and an iconic image of British women’s war effort. It shows Ruby Loftus, a former tobacconist’s assistant, who as an ‘outstanding factory worker’ who mastered the complex and dangerous job of making a breech ring for the Bofors gun, which normally took eight to nine years training. The last of of this selection is ‘Take Off’ which illustrates the crew of a Stirling Mk lll RAF bomber preparing for take-off. I think the viewer can sense the acute concentration of these crew members as they carry out their preparatory tasks, but each privately dealing with the fears of the dangers that they will soon face. To me, this is figurative art at its very
best.
Laura Knight – A balloon site Coventry – 1943
Laura Knight – Ruby Loftus screwing a Breech Ring – 1943
Laura Knight – Take Off – 1943
Whilst Laural Knight’s art was of the realist genre Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975) veered to the abstract. Another leading influence in women’s art, principally a sculptor, Hepworth also produced many paintings and drawings – an example being her acclaimed series ‘Hospital Drawings’ Following the hospitalisation of their daughter Sarah in 1944, Hepworth and her then husband, artist Ben Nicholson, (married 1938-1951) befriended one of the
surgeons and she was invited to observe surgical procedures, producing around 80 works.
Barbara Hepworth ‘Surgery’ c.1949
Oil and pencil on paper on board 49 x 73 cm
Her output in the 1940s through to the 1960s was prolific. Perhaps my favourite Hepworth sculpture is one from her ‘Mother and Child ‘ series, this one from 1934. I love how the lines flow freely and simply, to achieve the form of the two seperate individuals in unity, beautifully devoid of detail, with the stone rubbed to a stunning smoothness. Barbara Hepworth is also known for her association with fellow sculptor Hanry Moore whom she met when studying at the Leeds School of Art from 1920.
Barbara Hepworth ‘Mother and Child’ 1934.
Pink ancaster stone.
Hepworth also had to fight hard against the male-dominated art environment to win a scholarship to
attend the Royal Collage of Art in London from 1921-24. Sadley Barbara died tragically, killed in a fire
at her St Ives studio in 1975 when she was 72.
Lee Krasner (1908-1984) played her part in the rise of American independence in art through Abstract Expressionism. It is unfair, but a sad fact of her time, that she was known more for being the long suffering wife of the heavy drinking and womanising Jackson Pollock than for her work as an artist in her own right. She modified her name to Lee from Lenore to suggest some masculinity, as famous critic Clement Goldberg stated there was no milage in being a woman artist. Several
other women artists also changed their names for the same reason.
I find the works of Portuguese-British artist Paula Rego (1935-2022) very complex, but she was considered the pre-eminent woman artist of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, known particularly for her paintings and prints based on storybooks. Her
style evolved from abstract to representational, and she preferred pastels to oils. Her work often reflected feminism coloured by folk themes from her native Portugal.
The painting opposite is ‘War’ 2003 that was inspired by a press photograph of a running woman and static wounded child in the Iraq war. Rego said of the painting, ‘I thought I would do a picture about these children getting hurt, but I turned them into rabbits’
heads, like masks. It’s very difficult to do it with humans, it doesn’t get the same kind of feel at all. It seemed more real to transform them into creatures. (Wiki)
Maggie Hambling b.1945 is principally a painter but best- known are her public works sculptures, one of which is ‘Scallop’ 2003 (see adjacent photograph), which celebrates composer Benjamin Britten. Located on Aldeburgh Beach near Britten’s home, the four meter high cast stainless steel sculpture is in the form of the two fractured halves of a scallop shell etched with the quotation from Britten’s opera ‘Peter Grimes’ – ‘I hear the voices that will not be drowned’. Hambling was the first woman Artist-in-Residence at the National Gallery (1981-82).
Sadly, here my list must end. I would have liked to cover the works of American Helen Frankenthaler and the Mexican Freda Kahlo from the near past, and of contemporaries like Bridgit Riley, Tracey Emin and the Ethiopian American Julie Mehretu. I recommend further reading on these artists as they, without doubt, have added their own significant contribution to the women artists that have shaped
modern art.
David McGuire 2024
