Document généré le 30 sept. 2021 22:07 Vie des arts English Reports Volume 44, numéro 177, hiver 1999–2000 URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/53096ac Aller au sommaire du numéro Éditeur(s) La Société La Vie des Arts ISSN 0042-5435 (imprimé) 1923-3183 (numérique) Découvrir la revue Citer ce compte rendu (1999). Compte rendu de [English Reports]. Vie des arts, 44(177), 80–87. Tous droits réservés © La Société La Vie des Arts, 1999 Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d’auteur. L’utilisation des services d’Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d’utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne. https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ Cet article est diffusé et préservé par Érudit. Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l’Université de Montréal, l’Université Laval et l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. https://www.erudit.org/fr/ LT In her recent publication the visual plane with a matter-of-fact MONTRÉAL LEON GOLUB: +•> Painting friends, the Beaver Hall self confidence, a directness that is i- Women Painters (1999), author disconcerting, as though the women WHILE THE CRIME PAINTING FRIENDS, Barbara Meadowcroft traces the portrayed are privy to some knowl­ IS BLAZING O THE BEAVER HALL lives and careers of these Montreal edge which eludes the viewer. Liane and Danny Taran Gallery, women artists whose life-long asso­ Saidye Bronfman Centre for WOMEN PAINTERS This book's strength lies pre­ ciation began when they met at art dominantly in its recognition of the Arts OJ Barbara Meadowcroft school in the early 1900s. Ten friendship as a powerful force that January 18 - March 5, 2000 women were affiliated with that united the ten women, and provided group: Emily Coonan, Nora Colyer, them with the sustaining environ­ on Prudence Heward, Mabel Lockerby, ment that made it possible for them Mabel May, Kathleen Morris, Lilias to paint. In this way, Meadowcroft's Torrance Newton, Sarah Robertson, findings constitute a sensitive Ann Savage, and Ethel Seath. Despite acknowledgement of the social and C their successes - clearly evidenced in political currents of the period, as their achievements (including well as of the ways in which women exhibiting with the Group of Seven, navigated these in order to carry out as well as internationally, throughout creative work. the 1920's and 30's) - their contri­ As Meadowcroft notes, only bution has been largely overlooked recently has attention begun to be by art historians. Meadowcroft pro­ paid 10 these women. We are tempt­ vides the first in-depth look at these ed to turn to these works for visual extraordinary women. In chapters Cover page: testimony of the cautionings of Dionysiac, Leon Golub. 1998 with such revealing titles as "Family x Christine di Stefano: gender is basic Acrylic on linen, 118.5 73-5 In. Ties" (Chapter Five) or "Surviving as in ways that we have yet to fully Painters in the Great Depression" understand... it functions as "a dif­ There's no salvation for Leon Front cover: Plate 23 (Chapter Seven), Meadowcroft pro­ Golub's decontextualized humans. Autumn (or Girl with Apple), ference that makes a difference" vides a long overdue discussion of Prudence Howard, 1942, even as it can no longer claim the These malcontents are Godless crea­ oil on canvas, 76 x 63,5 cm their lives and their careers, and of legitimating mantle of the difference. tures who live in a Godless world. The the conditions surrounding both. The figure of the shrinking woman walled empty urban scenarios they The material presented in may perhaps be best appreciated exist in are beyond redemption. As The notion of survival has long Painting Friends has been gleaned and utilized as an aporia within con­ icons of violence, corruption and provided fodder for art history, and from archival sources, as well as temporary theory: as a recurring abuse of power, these paintings are for those engaged with the complex from over 100 interviews with the paradox, question, dead end, or not purist or aesthetic but hit-and-run process of artistic production. There painters' friends and families. In blind spot to which we must repeat­ visual diatribes designed to CON­ is first the artist's own struggle to addition to numerous photographs edly return, because to ignore her VINCE ME OF MY ERRORS as the produce the work, and then begins and sketches in black and white, the altogether is to risk forgetting and painted graffiti in like Yeah (1994) the process that assures the exhorts. Graffiti "tagging" is com­ endurance of a particular work or book is illustrated with 24 colour thereby losing what is left of her. plates, which dilineate the three monly used by Golub to set the para­ collection. For women artists, how­ On the other hand, one might meters of the scene. An arrow marker ever, the question of survival themes that typified the artists' sub­ argue, di Stefanos reference to the jects: landscapes, still lifes, and por­ in the same painting points to an in­ assumes more complex dimensions. figure of the shrinking woman is not, verted skeleton with more words, this In order to paint at all, women artists traits. What is perhaps most interest­ by any means, what we see in these time "another joker out of business" historically have had to contend with ing about the paintings themselves powerful paintings. Rather, her ref­ adjacent to it. A man's face is a patriarchal socio-historical con­ when viewed in the context of a erence evokes a metaphor for these bleached out, pure white, objectified, text, to accommodate the prescribed "group" - as they are here - is the artists' scant presence in Canadian roles and responsibilities of domes­ frank openness with which the sub­ dehumanized. His mouth is caught art history. Meadowcroft's Painting open in some kind of abject scream tic production, which have taken jects are captured. In Beaver Hall friends enables us to look toward precedence over the exigencies of of anxiety whose source he will never Square (c. 1923) by Anne Savage, fostering a new understanding of the artistic work. As Griselda Pollock know. The horror is not about what for example, grey buildings, vertical role of such women painters, and to recently noted: windows, and thinly outlined trees goes on inside this man's skull but according them their rightful place the violence that exists as a universal Women live the conditions of stretch skyward, as bent figures and among this century's best. artistic production differentially horse-drawn carriages brace against common denominator in Golub's according to the social as well as the the whirling snow. The effect, despite Elizabeth Wood world. It's like a Henry Miller story subjective structures of gender and the monochromatic colours, is one that has been exhumed, all the im­ ages and insights have been thrown sexual difference, economic and cul­ of blunt energy; towering structures 1 Pollock, Griselda. (1999). Differencing the tural positionality. Painting or any countered by dwarfed figures press­ Canon. Feminist Desire and the Writing of around the place like shards of lost Art's Histories. New York: Routledge. p. reason. Identical replicas of sexy form of cultural practice, not only is ing to resist their upward thrust. A 146. dancers in triplicate, a man with his determined by social institutions and force of similar magnitude, but very 2 As Meadowcroft notes, of the ten artists, semiotic structures but is the site at different in mood, permeates the "Nine of the Beaver Hall women were fist clenched leaning against the spinsters - whether by choice or circum­ wall/edge of the painting. A dog se­ which these are articulated negotiat­ still-fife entitled Lilies (c. 1938) by stance is hard to say" (Montreal: Véhicule. ed and transformed. Sarah Robertson. Here sensuous 1999, p. 80). questered into a black square of blooms extend outward, now toward 3 "The nine single painters lived with their paint. Is Golub alluding to the trap of The group of artists known as parents and siblings for most of their lives. painting itself, the historicity of the act the Beaver Hall Women Painters the viewer, now away, against a win­ Some had little choice since their art did dow pane through which, between not provide them with a livelihood, but of painting? The textural scumbled ef­ were remarkable not only in their most were also influenced by family loyal­ fects, the gesturally painted tracts and determination and capacity to "nego­ the stems and leaves of the pulsating ty. Society expected unmarried daughters flowers, houses and lampposts peer to care for their parents (...) But the real words in paintings such as Uke Yeah tiate and transform", but also in the problem for these creative women was (1994), Scratch (1999) and Time's bonds of friendship which united humbly. Finally, among the most caused less by external circumstances remarkable in this collection are the than by the patriarchal image of woman as Up (1997) change our conception of them for life, and which enabled nurturer, which they had internalized". these scenes. The picture plane be­ them to realize their commitment to portraits, for example Self-Portrait (Meadowcroft, op.cit., p. 81) (c. 1929) by Lilias Torrance Newton, comes a wall that closes the space in, painting, despite the constraints of 4 Cited in Tong, Rosemarie Putnam. (1997). but not the pictures themselves. A institutions and structures which or Autumn (or Girl with apple) Feminist Thought. (Second Ed.). Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, pp.