Vol. 1 No. 4 r f l/IIIC 4i# U i I Spring-Summer 1977

WHY HAVE THERE BEEN NO GREAT WOMEN ARCHITECTS? As demonstrated by the recent show

; 1 L l at the Brooklyn Museum, the plight of women in this field \ j m | may be worse than that of women in the other visual arts by Elena Borstein...... p ag e 4

•if p r » l MICHELLE STUART: Atavism, Geomythology and Zen I d t i t k i ' j Stuart’s own writings, plus other revelations ' r : about the artist and her work by Robert H obbs ...... p a g e 6

WOMEN’S CAUCUS FOR ART Report from the President Women Architects by Judith Brodsky...... page 10

ON PAULA MODERSOHN-BECKER, GERMAN PAINTER Thoughts on her role as a woman versus her needs as an artist by Heidi Blocher...... pa g e 13

NOTES ON GEORGIA O’KEEFFE’S IMAGERY Interpretation of her flower paintings need not remain solely in the realm of the sexual by Lawrence Al lo w a y ...... p age 18

CALIFORNIA REVIEWS byPeterFrank ...... p a g e 23

GALLERY REVIEWS p ag e 24

REPORTS Queens College Library Program, Michelle Stuart Women's Art Symposium, Women Artists of the Northwest. . . . .page34

Cover: Julia Morgan, San Simeon, San Luis Obispo, California, 1920-37. The Architectural League of New York.

WOMANARTMAGAZINE is published quarterly by Womanart Enterprises, 161 Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, New York 11215. Editorial submissions and all inquiries should be sent to: P.O. Box 3358, Grand Central Station, New York, N.Y. 10017. Subscription rate: $5.00 fo r one year. Application to mail at second class postage rates pending in Brooklyn, N.Y. and additional mailing offices. All opinions expressed are those o f the authors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors. This publication is on file with the International Women's History Archive, Special Collections Library, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60201. Permission to reprint must be secured in writing from the publishers. Copyright © Paula Modersohn-Becker Womanart Enterprises, 1977. A ll rights reserved. In 1971 Linda Nochlin posed this ques­ The physical setting of the show, 99 The strictures of society and the internal­ tion about women artists. Her five-year panels set on rows and rows of drafting ization by women of its sexist values were search, (with Ann Sutherland Harris), tables took excellent advantage of the high, the greatest handicaps to women in archi­ spanning 400 years of art history and open exhibition space. The panels con­ tecture, as in all areas of creative endeavor. culminating in the Los Angeles County tained blow-ups of text and illustrations It is no wonder then that the predominant Museum show Women Artists: 1550-1950 from the book that was edited by Susana form of early work by women architects was proved the question misdirected. It wasn’t Torre and published in conjunction with in the domestic sphere. Catherine Beecher, that great women artists did not exist, it the exhibition.(1) Suspended above the architect/philosopher, in 1841 wrote of the was that the society which revered and center aisles were huge computer-printed moral superiority of women based on their preserved male-created art turned its back banners, and on one wall there was a series capacity for self-sacrifice, a polemic in on the achievements of women who man­ of beautifully rendered architectural pro­ which women’s domestic labors are both aged to overcome social barriers to become jects done by early graduates of M.I.T. morally sanctified and unending. She con­ artists. Reading through the entire exhibition centrated her designs upon the home over Women in American Architecture: A meant several hours on one’s feet and one which women would rule. This glorification Historic and Contemporary Perspective, wishes there had been more original visual of the domestication of the female is also an exhibition of 200 years of women’s material. However, to follow the exhibition reflected in architect Helen Campbell’s architecture, recently on display at the by relaxing comfortably with the book treatise Household Economics. “Cleaning Brooklyn Museum was organized by the proved to be an immensely interesting, can never pass from the woman’s hands... Architectural League of New York with though often infuriating experience. for to make the world clean this is the one architect Susana Torre as guest curator. Although Torre spent four years re­ great task for women.” Virginia Woolf This show poses a fascinating and frustrat­ searching the book and assembling the wrote that a person needed a “room of one’s ing question parallel to Linda Nochlin’s. show, she writes, “It is still too early to own” in order to create; Beecher and Torre presented the work of many little make wholesale comparisons between the Campbell claimed that the room for women known women architects and her show work of men and women architects.” should be the kitchen. Here is a chilling clearly illuminated the social restrictions, example of the effects of society’s dictated even more severe than those forced on 1. Susana Torre, ed. Women in American Architec­ role for women, a stereotype women are still women painters, that affected women ar­ ture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective. 1977, battling. Whitney Library of Design, New York. All quotes and chitects. references pertain to this source. It was not until 1893, through the

Catherine E. Beecher, undated. Women in Skidmore, Owings and Merrill/Natalie de Blois Mimi Lobell, Goddess Temple, 1975, section. American Architecture, The Brooklyn (member o f the design team), Pepsi-Cola Build­ Photo courtesy the artist. Museum. in g (now owned by Olivetti). New York, 1959. The Architectural League of New York. Sophia Hayden, Woman’s Building, Chicago, 1892. The Architectural E. Raymond. Solar House for Miss Amelia Peabody. Dover, Massachu­ League of New York. setts. 1948. The Architectural League o f New York. concerted efforts of early feminists includ­ California in 1894. Determined to pursue They have not received the full recognition ing Susan B. Anthony, that the first major architecture, she spent two years in Paris for their contributions in the field of archi­ public building designed by a woman was taking tests and entering competitions tecture. Torre and her colleagues bring built. The feminists’ demand for women’s before she became the first woman admit­ long overdue recognition to people such as participation in the Columbia Exposition ted to the Ecole des Beaux Arts. She these and the exhibition cut with the double resulted in a competition for the design of a became the most prolific of all women edge of showing just how much overt and Woman’s Pavilion, won by Sophia Hayden, architects, designing over 800 buildings in covert sexism still remains. who at 22 was one of the early graduates of an eclectic style, including the Hearst But the show went beyond these dramat­ M.I.T. This first public building featuring castle, San Simeon. ic examples of discrimination within the the achievements of women was controver­ As architecture became more technolog­ profession and began to criticize the social sial from the start. Though it was the work ically complex the problems women faced and esthetic motives of architecture, ex­ of a young and inexperienced architect it were compounded. While writer George ploring new ways of perceiving and using was compared to the more heavily budgeted Sand or painter Rosa Bonheur could create space. In architecture as in art, women in commissions done by the most prominent outside the bounds of societal values, greater numbers than ever before are male architects of the period. Although the women architects, bound by the need for making bold and personal statements. beginning of Sophia Hayden’s career more complex training and financial back­ Such projects as Mimi Lobell’s Goddess seemed auspicious it was her first and last ing, and depending on a client’s support, Temple, a symbolic representation of the commission. When she retired with “brain- were forced to work in more traditional physical body of the Great Mother Goddess fever” (nervous breakdown) the press directions. Many women found the only and celebration of the “Feminine Princi­ raised the question “Was architecture an way to commissions was through marriage ple;” the Ceramic Museum by Aleksandra unhealthy career for a woman?” to another architect, and many husband Kasuba, a stretch-fabric environment; the Given these attitudes toward women, it and wife partnerships were formed. reconstructed log house by Nancy Stout; is not surprising that they found it difficult, In the 1950s and ’60s most of the major the Solar House by Ann Hersh, etc., show as illustrated by the show, to get the public commissions went to the large new and varied concerns which are a far cry educational training they needed to prac­ corporations. Women pursuing this direc­ from “The Ideal Kitchen.” tice their profession, let alone achieve tion found a new set of stumbling blocks, Architecture, as critic Ada Louise Hux- greatness. In 1887 M .I.T. became the first more subtle in many ways but placed along table has noted, is the last profession to be American school to open its doors to the same old line. The show presented the liberated, and Women in American Archi­ women, but by 1900 this had become a poignant example of Natalie de Blois who, tecture is an historical document that mere token acceptance. In 1910 only in 1944, joined what was to become one of shows the contributions and efforts of one-half of the architecture schools admit­ the foremost architectural firms of the women architects to date. But it is also a ted women and by 1958 only one percent of post-World War II era, Skidmore, Owings, symbolic achievement, representing pro­ all registered architects were women. Of and Merrill. For over 30 years she was gress toward the equality of all women. One those that did graduate, three out of four senior designer for the firm, working on can only speculate how architecture might women never practiced, leading one male their most prestigious commissions. While be affected by the equal participation of architect to rationalize, “The rest are her male counterparts became ‘stars’ and women. Women architects I queried on this probably home raising little architects.” As were elevated to partnership in the firm, question echoed Torre’s reply, “It’s too late as 1969,1 was the only woman to attend she was known only within the industry and early to tell,” but I cannot help wondering a graduate seminar given by architect Louis was never made a partner. (There were 26 whether the emerging influence of women Kahn (at the University of Pennsylvania when she left in 1974). in the field will challenge the male-domi­ where I was an MFA student). It has been 75 years since an employer of nated architecture of our society, offering The show also documents the inspiring Julia Morgan announced, “I have the best an alternative to de-humanizing skyscrap­ example of a few upper-class women who and most talented designer whom I have to ers and impersonal environments. But through perseverance were able to over­ pay almost nothing as it [sic] is a woman.” whatever the effect of the growing numbers come educational barriers to get the train­ Despite the growing feminist consciousness of women in architecture, the movement ing they needed. Theodate Pope Riddle, in America, architects like Natalie de Blois, has begun, and it will inexorably proceed to denied entrance to Princeton’s School of Chloethiel Woodard Smith, Anne Tyng, develop with the growing consciousness of Architecture, hired its professors as private Mary Otis Stevens, Denise Scott Brown and women. tutors. Julia Morgan graduated with an others have been kept in relative anonymity engineering degree from the University of compared with their male counterparts. by Robert Hobbs MICHELLE STUART Artists’ intentions and procedures have now come to be recognized as an inextrica­ ble part of the work of art, while the object itself, sometimes a deserving palimpsest, exists as the sheerest essence and most refined distillation of the ideas that went into making it. Indicative of this contempo­ rary phenomenon, Michelle Stuart’s fragile scrolls with their evanescent fields and her even more fragile books (appropriately termed ‘asteroid wafers’ by Lawrence Allo- way) become, metaphorically speaking, the spirit in contradistinction to the corporal ‘body,’ the physical act of making. In her writings Stuart shows an admira­ ble facility with symbolic thinking: literary symbols, metaphors and analogies. In her scrolls and books she suspends this knowl­ edge in a way, uses it as a background to her actions, and creates a completely visual art that alludes in its materials and process to meanings. Because the visual arts in their most refined form can only allude and evoke, being unable to spell out and describe, Stuart’s means are inherently limited. A work of art (here referring only to the object) in a sense is a vector pointing the viewer in the direction of an esthetic experience (in Stuart’s case a transcendent one); it is a catalyst that permits insight into eternal verities but never is a mere enumer­ ation of the verities themselves. A work of art, moreover, allows viewers to participate in many realms, sometimes contradictory ones, and on different levels even though such experiences may not have been part of the artist’s intention. In Stuart’s art, for instance, one can legitimately find analo­ gies to woman, relationships with the findings of interplanetary expeditions, par­ allels between occidental and oriental, and oblique comments on her artistic precur­ sors, namely abstract expressionists, color field painters, earth artists and American Indian artificers. In this essay, I intend to examine Michelle Stuart’s art predomi­ nately from a vantage point commensurate with the artist’s own outlook and limit myself to suggesting ways her art provides a springboard to other realms of experience. Stuart’s mature works are a logical cul­ mination ofher formative years. As a child, she accompanied her father, an engineer who mapped rights-of-way for water lines in California. The inland regions, the uninhabited deserts of California, are the places with which she identifies. Since both ofher parents were seasoned travelers, she remembers listening to tales of their adventures and then studying maps— which she calls “sensuous experiences”— to locate the places they described. After art school she worked as a topo­ graphical draughtswoman, mapping out places as diverse as Las Vegas and Korea. In her artistic pursuit she underwent a period of experimentation with both paint­ ing and sculpture, making figurative as focused on drawing and in 1968 began a Atavism, Qeomythology, and Zen 6 series of detailed studies of the moon’s Her scrolls, casually displayed with rol­ surface based on recent photos. Stuart has led ends, at first appear to be only written in her journal, Return to the Silent summarily nuanced fields. Closer scrutiny Garden, in progress since the winter of reveals a fascinating surface resembling 1970-71, of the need to take off historical scoria with its vesicles and cavities or blinders and envisage the universe in all of perhaps an image of a vast plain accented its grandeur, to get beyond herself and view with kettles and drumlins, with craters the world from a cosmic vantage point: looking like the surface of the moon. Some the universe 26,000,000,000 light resemble thick animal hides. Many are years in diameter pulsating in a vast enriched with subtle colors that are derived period of 82,000,000,000 years. It's mainly from rocks and earth and only oc­ about time we arrive at a new state of casionally from graphite. Niagara II, for consciousness about that and our instance, is the result of pounding and physical presence in that continuum. polishing shale. It is composed mostly of Personal and universal. It must go grays and blacks derived from the carbona­ beyond 'Art' and all the petty mea­ ceous content in the rock, which also surements and boundaries... (1) contains some iron and manganese oxide deposits emitting small amounts of red and After the moon series, she turned in 1972 to purple that look like gossamer veils embed­ large sheets of paper on which she massed ded in the paper. marks of graphite; soon after, she began to make impressions of the earth. Her works Sayreville Strata (1976), a four-part at first were rubbings of the earth’s surface; piece varying in hue from beige to yellow to later she began to pile soil and rocks on the coral, is named for an abandoned brick paper, creating an intaglio of her process. quarry in Sayreville, New Jersey. Starkly Her artistic development continued to be a barren, Sayreville is like a “painted desert” of earth colors so rich that they resemble natural evolution in which she gradually # 9 ,1973. Graphite on canvas-backed rag paper, replaced illusionism (drawings of the turn-of-the-century retouched photo­ 144x60". Photo: Bevan Davies. All photos graphs of the Grand Canyon. The place was moon’s surface) with literal impressions, courtesy Max Hutchinson Gallery. using the earth at first as a surrogate moon important for artist Charles Simonds, who and later as important in itself. the working procedure Stuart must effect introduced Stuart to this area. Earlier What Stuart sought is a technique that many subtle distinctions. In Niagara II Simonds had used Sayreville as the location for his film Birth in which he celebrates reinforces her content. Going out into the (1976), for example, careful attention to man’s primordial bonds with the earth. In country and collecting samples of loose blurring edges onto the white border neces­ the past few years Stuart has derived many rock and soil, she spreads material from a sitates a certain amount of discretion that pieces from the multi-hued soil of this site. given site on a large piece of muslin-backed her improvisational method at the outset paper. Whenever possible she works out of would not appear to permit. In Niagara II, While the appearance of Stuart’s work might suggest relationships with such art­ doors, directly at the site. Using some of the as in a few of her other scrolls, Stuart ever ists as Jules Olitski, her vastly different stones as pestles, she engages in the strenu­ so slightly adjusts the value so that it ous activity of pulverizing the ore into fine becomes lighter at the top and also allows attitudes have resulted in a monumental style of drawing-painting that is antithetic grains. The history of her actions is the paper when hung to roll onto the floor, documented in the paper itself, forming a thus establishing a feeling of transcendence to premises underlying color field painting. She is only incidentally concerned with the scroll of literal impressions of her pound­ and conversely a sensation of gravity. The so-called dictates of modernism, with sur­ ings. Feeling that her aggressively physical finished artworks belie the physicality of face and flatness, but she is deeply preoc­ attack in some way symbolically corre­ her approach: her large scrolls simply cupied with the inherent qualities of her sponds to the ravages of earthquakes, tacked on the wall with push pins are medium. In the act of creation she bestows glacial drift, and meteorites, she then remarkably subtle, extremely delicate a meaning on her materials that is greater metaphorically reenacts the process of slow presences. erosion by hand rubbing the fine silt into than a summation of the substances them­ the paper until it assumes a dull sheen. In selves. At various points in her process, earth is equated with the sine qua non for her journal Stuart reflects on the atavistic existence and the human body (the biblical ramifications of her means: earthen vessel); pulverized earth with pri­ Rubbing and polishing stones is an mal matter; and impressions or intaglios of ancient activity of human kind... this pulverized earth with spirit. These cor­ dreamers innermost being... true per­ respondences, only generally circum­ sonality. Stones hidden in caves, scribed, are not consciously worked out by wrapped in bark... containers o f divine Stuart, who courts the intuitive and creates powers...rub stones...power increases in a manner reflective of ritual. (charged with electricity)...vibrations Recently Stuart has begun a Rock Book from the place (site) send them back Series in which she imbues paper with with ours. Shape the stone... Stone is variously colored minerals. In these books Self...return stone to land...part of she plays on the subtleties of the texture soul remains. We are all parts of a and color of various rocks to suffuse pages whole, no good/bad facile dualisms... of handmade paper with the most delicate all one pulsating force. shades of white, pink, beige and brown. At Stuart’s activity repeats the stratification times the pulverized stone endows the of graded bedding. Symbolically she builds pages with a feldspathic quality; flecks of up layers to the silt at the top, which is then mica in the paper reflect light and call to buffed. When she polishes the paper, she mind desert sand. Often they are gathered no doubt refines on her initial and acciden­ into packets and tied with hand woven tal findings, for her art is imbued with a string. There is a certain secretive quality to poetry of being impossible to achieve by Nesting History Book, 1975. Earth, feathers, the books, and many of them are not closely adhering to set procedures. During rag paper, linen, 16x11x2". intended to be opened.

7 An important source for her series is a place noted, the pages of some books fetish of paper tied with twine, resembling a were files with marks alone, some gave cocoon, that she found when she was dimension to the continuum of na­ working at Artpark in Lewiston, New York ture's processes, others made acces­ in 1975. The fetish, most likely made in the sible the mystery o f the invisible. 20th century by local Indians, is represent­ Others cried o f the white wolf. ative of a type frequently tied to tree branches. Respectful of the magical quality Just as men searching for gold explored of this object, Stuart has refrained from parts of the Americas, and as more recently opening it. She has carefully preserved it in men have hazarded the terrors of outer a papier-mache Chinese box, and the mix­ space to return with only a few precious ture of American Indian fetish and Chinese rocks from the moon, Michelle Stuart views container is denotative of her synthesis of the earth as an important treasure and Eastern and Western traditions. The im­ collects rocks on her sojourns in the portance of this fetish for the R ock Books country. She thinks of the earth as a large depends on the way in which the spell, book, and the materials she collects provide curse, or supplication—the spirit in other the pigmentation for her integuments of words—is secreted in an encasement of paper. pink paper and simple twine. At times Stuart reflects with irony on the Her Rock Books are anomalies, belles 20th century’s mania for facts, wondering lettres without words; they are suggestive of what would happen if information about love letters that have been carefully pre­ the world became so complete that every­ served and treasured by people through the thing was accurately described. In such a ages. Some contain pages of different situation, preposterous though it may colors, each recording a specific layer of seem, man’s information would be identi­ rock at a given site; others are signposts Quarry Notebook Sayreville, New Jersey, 1976. cal to the world and disappear because it marking spots along a river or spiral. They Handmade paper, earth, handmade string, would then be the world. At the beginning are histories without words; anachro­ I2x8Vix2Vi". of The Fall, a book-length prose poem, nisms—texts as records of time and place, which Stuart has recently written, she harking back to cultures that did not have excluded all that was not relevant. It indicates such a world when she writes of a such devices. Torn paper and ragged isolated and selected particular quali­ book so large and complete that its dimen­ threads from the linen and muslin backing, ties of reality or barely perceived sions are synonymous with the boundaries of great importance to Stuart’s books, realms o f experience. The books were of the country whose history it describes: accentuate the palpability of the paper and a way of exploring the spirit of the In that time, the keeping of records at the same time the fragility of the land. reached such fervor that the history of materials and in a strange way endow them A voracious reader of travelogues, even one state alone took up the whole of a with a quality of unreality, of sheer illusion city and the history of a country the and pure poetry. It is as if a book of verse those by missionaries, Stuart has evolved a highly original way of accounting for her whole of a state. As time passed those had been distilled of everything that did not records were not enough and the pertain to the spirit of poetry, including own travels: in her Rock Book she uses samples of soil and gravel from various professors wrote a history book which type, ink, grammar, and even words, which was the size o f the country itself and its have been debased by their everyday con­ places as records of her own trips, a habit going back to when she was a child and edges coincided with its borders. Less notations. It is as if Mallarme’s dream of a interested in the study of history, suc­ rarefied poetry of the spirit had been gathered stones to document the paths she took: ceeding generations understood that realized in a totally different format. this enormous history book was useless Moreover, it is as if haiku, which attempts I collected rocks carefully, left diaries and they abandoned it to its seasonal paradoxically to give form to silence, on the journey so that I would forget destiny. In the deserts of the west suddenly became mute and still. nothing. The journals were records, some tom andfragmented pages o f the The books seem to have their origin in memories, transformations, reloca­ book remained, inhabited by animals some fabulous legend, and Stuart in her tions. Each perception was dated, the and lovers. journal outlines an astounding story, a true one, that she has elaborated, turning it into a myth: 1835 San Nicholas Island the woman ran back to find her child. The last boat to the mainland did not wait for her. Soon the baby died. For eighteen years the woman lived in the jawbone of a whale lined with sea otter skins. The birds, rocks, fish, shellfish, roots and ancient Gods belonged to her alone. The island was wrapped in incessant winds and fogs. In the summer, dressed in elegant gowns of bird skins, she heard the young hair seals echo the cries o f her lost child. When she was found, there was no one left who could speak her language. Restrictions had collapsed but she retained her own boundaries. Some of the books were maps that charted the passage of time and informed on the nature o f an area. It Niagara Rock Book, 1975. Earth, rag paper, cotton cloth. 7x13x1". The Rock Books become assembled frag­ ments of this larger history. And her Niagara Gorge Path Relocated, Artpark, July 1975, a 420-foot-long scroll of muslin- backed rag paper tracing the location of Niagara Falls 12,000 years ago, was al­ ELBA DAMAST lowed, like the giant history book, to undergo weathering and erosion. The formulation of her Rock Books has been confirmed by reading Jorge Luis Paintings Borges’ Labyrinths. Of particular impor­ tance to her series is the description of the imaginary land Tlon where all books are considered to be the work of one author, May28-June/I6 who is atemporal and anonymous. But depending on the whims of critics, Borges adds, books are ascribed to different Reception: May28,1 5 p.m. authors. The idea of one author who has written all of the books that are then attributed to various writers appeals to Stuart who views the author as the human THE ALTERNATE SPACE GALLERY spirit and the innumberable variations as the efforts of different creators to give it AT WESTBROADWAY tangible form. Her attitudes reveal the 431 West Broadway, NewYork City 10012 interests of those people who are described Telephone (212) 966-2520 in another of Borges’ stories, “The Library of Babel,” an imaginary sequence involving a huge storehouse that contains all of the books which have been and could possibly be written. In this tale humans having access to the library search for the one book that provides the key to wisdom, a volume supposedly contained within this over­ whelming collection. Stuart’s Rock Books MICHELLE STUART seem to be ironic comments on this search is represented by for wisdom; since they contain no writing, they would not be housed in the library. Just as Ad Reinhardt, who created an art maximal in spirit and minimal in form, felt max he had originated the painting to end all paintings, Stuart with equal justification Hutchinson could make the claim that she has created the book to end all books. gallery 138 Greene Street, New York Tel 966-3066 Looking at the earth as a source, Stuart has found it dominated by cycles: volca­ noes, earthquakes, ice ages, synclines and anticlines, movements along the earth’s crust continuously repeated, the process of perpetual erosion. She has rejected the '60s minimalist tendency to demythicize art by designing literal objects often associated with those found in the industrial world. Instead, Stuart opts for a primitive ontolo­ MARGIE BILLSTEIN KATZ gy similar to that outlined by Mircea Eliade in his Eternal Return in which primitive man and Zen devotees attempt to live an- historically. Wishing to evade history and its limitations, they continuously reside in an ever-present now that correlates with sacred time, the time following paradigms Recent Paintings laid down by the gods. According to Eliade, the awareness of history signals man and June 4 —25 woman’s eviction from the Garden of Eden because history and its close associate memory endow a human being with a conscience, with a feeling of guilt and an awareness of original sin. To exist continu­ ously in Eden a primitive evades individual­ Razor Gallery ity by identifying with a tribe and adhering 464 West Broadway to precedents reputedly laid down by the New York, New York 10012 Tel. (212) 533-3427 gods. To deviate from the norm, to invent a new object, or to establish the precedent for Tues. — Sat. 12—6 continued on page 20

9 a caucus within CAA. No one expected such an enthusiastic reaction. The room was packed. Dues were set and collected on the spot and Ann Sutherland Harris was elected president. The first project under­ taken by the new caucus was to collect the data and compile the statistics on employ­ ’s Caucu: ment. Ann Harris and Barbara Ehrlich White in quick order produced the evi­ dence which showed that what everyone had intuited was true—the number of or Art trained women did equal the number of trained men but women barely made it into the lower ranks of art departments across the country. The next question was how to change that situation. That proved harder than collecting the statistics. Report from the President The Caucus has now been working on " . ■ ■ ' that problem for five years. One approach has been to bring pressure to bear on CAA to improve the climate for women in the by Judith Itrod^ki academic art world. The Caucus has presented a number of resolutions to the CAA board designed to accord women mm more recognition. One such resolution was that the makeup of the CAA board should The Women’s Caucus for Art met in Los within CAA and furthering the position of represent the membership proportionately Angeles during the College Art Association women in art in general. At that time, in terms of sex, race, and geographic distri­ meetings the first week in February 1977. although Ann Coffin Hanson was president bution. The result has been that the CAA The College Art Association, as the pri­ of CAA, only five other women were on the board now has as many women members as mary professional society in the United CAA board of directors (there are 24 men. A second resolution brought about States of art historians and artists who members on the board). Furthermore, even changes in CAA rules for prizes, making teach at the college level, holds a confer­ though no statistics were available, it was a the prizes more available to women. The ence every year in a different geographic pretty good guess that as in all other WCA is currently urging the CAA to location, rotating to cover the East, the academic and professional disciplines, de­ establish grievance procedures for mem­ Midwest, and the West. The conference spite the exceptions, women were clustered bers to avail themselves of in cases of sex consists of sessions devoted to art topics at the low end of the rank and pay scales. If discrimination and other comparable situ­ ranging from ancient to contemporary. this were true, then it was an insupportable ations. Another feature of the annual convention is situation in art since it was undoubtedly Another approach by the Caucus has the placement service—jobs are posted and also true that there were as many trained been to encourage women’s studies in art. candidates are interviewed by representa­ female art historians and artists as males. This goal has been accomplished through tives of various institutions. The CAA also But there were no statistics to prove the case the sponsorship of a bibliography of wo­ makes use of the occasion to present awards and unless women themselves began to take men’s studies in art programs, compiled for achievement in art history, criticism, action on their own behalf, no one was initially by Athena Tacha Spear and updat­ and teaching. about to do anything. ed in a second edition by Lola Gellman, and Membership in the CAA stands now at Paula Hays Harper, who along with through publication, as well, of a source approximately 7,000. Of that number, Miriam Schapiro and others had been book for slides of work by women, compiled slightly over half are women. The Caucus discussing this situation, took the initiative by Mary Garrard. The Caucus has also was formed in 1972 with the idea of and asked for a room and a time for women given small grants to support various other providing a stronger voice for all the women CAA members to hold a meeting and form research studies aimed at rediscovering

P

Installation view. Left: Audrey Flack. Top right: Nancy Grossman. Bottom Installation view, “Works on Paper” exhibition, Woman's Building, Los right: Nancy Spero. Angeles. Top right center: May Stevens. Top right: Ellen Lanyon. Bottom middle: Carolyn Lew. Bottom right: Marcia Grubb. 10 Angeles area to form a Caucus chapter and organized the WCA activities there. WCA events took place at both the Woman’s Building and the Hilton. The exhibition, “Contemporary Issues: Works on Paper by Women,” sponsored jointly by the WCA and the Woman’s Building, provided the opportunity for women artists who are working right now to be seen concurrently in Los Angeles with the historical show, Women Artists: 1550-1950 at the Los Angeles County Museum. I’ve tried to give some of the historical reasons as to how the Caucus became involved so broadly in the women’s art movement in order to explain why the WCA Los Angeles meetings became such a focal point of activity and excitement. Of course, the event which touched off the planning of the large WCA program was the exhibition curated by Ann Sutherland Harris and Linda Nochlin mentioned above. It seemed very much the thing to do—to hold a Installation view, "Works on Paper" exhibition. Woman's Building, Los Angeles. celebration of women in art—at the mo­ ment when the past achievements of women women’s art history, such as the book on gainst which the Caucus fought is in large artists were collectively visible for the first women art historical scholars, currently part responsible for the change in its scope. time. The historic occasion required a being edited by Claire Sherman and Adele In 1974, the College Art Association in­ fanfare. Holcomb. formed the Caucus that it could no longer One of the central events of the WCA A third avenue of endeavor in this call itself the Women’s Caucus of the program was the works on paper show at direction has been to provide accurate College Art Association and that it must the Woman’s Building. We decided to information to women, enabling them to consider itself a separate organization. As mount the exhibition when it became help themselves. The Caucus will soon be far as I know, no other women’s caucus has apparent that no institution in the Los publishing a guide to the anti-discrimina­ been put in this position by its parent Angeles area was planning any kind of a tion laws; the guide will include procedures professional association. The CAA took broad show of contemporary women artists to follow when instituting a grievance, and this stand on the grounds that if the Caucus to complement the historical exhibition. discussion of the standards of proof re­ remained “of the College Art Association,” We asked 37 women art historians, critics, quired in academic and professional cases. the CAA would then be legally responsible curators, and artists from all over the The Caucus Newsletter also publishes in­ for its actions, a responsibility it wished to United States to serve as an invitational formation about discrimination cases that divest itself of. The Caucus had no choice. panel. Each woman was to select four to six are currently underway. It either had to disband or incorporate artists from her own region of the country. WCA also runs a placement service. Last separately. Needless to say, it chose the In this way we would have broad national year, the service received over 100 job latter course. The Women’s Caucus for representation. With support from the listings and sent out more than 1,000 vitae. Art, as it now became called, applied for National Endowment, we printed a cata­ We keep an eye on and publish the latest and received IRS non-profit, tax exempt log/checklist with a small photograph of statistics on the job market for women status as an educational organization in each work and biographical data for each academics, as well. December 1975. As a result of its separate artist, to provide documentation for future As can be readily surmised from the incorporation, the Caucus could begin to art historical research. The show included preceding description of activities, the accept members who did not belong to 160 works. It proved impossible to mount Women’s Caucus for Art initially had a CAA and gradually its concerns began to the show by region and to keep it coherent. purely academic focus. Its academic focus change to cover the needs of a broader The pluralism of the art world in general is remains, but gradually the Caucus has also membership. certainly present in the work of women come to be involved in all areas affecting One of the more significant actions in artists, and there was no consistency in style women in art and to represent and provide enlarging the range of Caucus interests and even among artists living in the same a national focal point for a tremendously representation was the establishment by geographic area. The variety of style also varied constituency. I don’t think it is an Mary Garrard, who was then president, of made it quite clear that no one style can be exaggeration to say that the Caucus is the an advisory board which was drawn from connected to women artists. The show was one national women’s organization in art the pool of women who have been influen­ hung in groups loosely defined by common that attracts a broad-based membership tial and important thinkers and doers in the esthetic involvement. A number of artists and generates an impact of cohesiveness art world. This pool was not kept within turned out to be interested in graph-like and effective action. academic confines and thus opened up the structures. Another group fell into the area But only a couple of years ago, the Caucus in terms of ideas and contacts. of decorative elements, while a few artists Caucus was known just within the College Many women artists who are not con­ were using specifically identifiable feminist Art Association. Even last year its sessions cerned with teaching at all have joined the content. A sizeable contingent sent works at the CAA meetings in Chicago were Caucus. They feel the Newsletter provides that were paper constructions rather than covered in only a few publications—notably them with kinds of information and com­ prints, watercolors, or drawings. One un­ the Feminist Art Journal and Artweek. Yet munication that is otherwise not available common feature was the inclusion of prints the Caucus program this year in Los to them. Women who are primarily inter­ among unique works. The show, although Angeles was a center of attention. Partici­ ested in alternative structures have also difficult to absorb, presented an image of pation in Caucus events was beyond all ex­ contributed to the mix that to my mind exuberance and creative vitality. There was pectations and the program received broad gives WCA its vitality. The W oman’s nothing diffident or conservative about the coverage. Building and the Feminist Studio Work­ images. Curiously enough, a circumstance a­ shop joined with other women in the Los The opening of the exhibition attracted

II an overflow crowd of College Art Associa­ not to be outdone, gave Harris and Nochlin and its influence on the art world was tion members and the local Los Angeles art each an “Artemisia” (named after the 17th discussed in several panels, specifically in world. Its gaiety was matched only by the century artist, Artemisia Gentileschi), an terms of the influence of content in the party at June Wayne’s studio the following armless Venus supplied with an arm and women’s movement on the development of evening, during which the WCA honored clenched fist. contemporary realism and in terms of the Ann Harris and Linda Nochlin for their There were nine WCA sessions in all with use of ritualistic imagery related to the pioneering work in assembling the Los a breadth of concerns directed toward chal­ goddess in work by women artists. Angeles County Museum exhibition. This lenging the stereotypes and biases of the Mainstream versus alternative publica­ party followed the College Art Association traditional art world. Communal and inter­ tions was the subject of another panel. convocation at which four of the five disciplinary approaches to both creativity While some journals have been receptive winners of various CAA prizes were wo­ and art historical research as typical of to the new methodology and scholarship of men. Amy Goldin received the award for women were persistent themes touched on women’s studies in art, many others have criticism; Catherine Wilkinson for the best several times. The issue of feminist criti­ not, and the alternative journals have Art Bulletin article by a new scholar; cism and what its scope should be was provided an outlet for the growing number Marilyn Lavin forthe best book on art; and warmly debated. Criticism of criticism was of scholarly contributions by women about Grace Hartigan as distinguished artist and even expressed; the idea put forth was that women. Both esthetic and practical prob­ studio teacher—the first woman to receive criticism in general is restrictive rather than lems facing women artists occupied other this award. The Women’s Caucus for Art, exploratory. The imagery of women artists sessions: the female sculptor who works on a large scale faces cultural bias in the process of getting her work funded; the artist who lives and works in areas like the Northwest has difficulty establishing a national reputation when the mainstream New York gallery world is so distant. The description above gives some idea of the scope of the program. My intention here is not to summarize individual sessions, but to suggest the flavor of the SOHO 20 conference as a whole. Abstracts of the sessions have been published in the spring issue of the WCA Newsletter, copies of which are available. Elena Borstein I would like to finish by giving you a Noreen Bumby personal reaction to the entire experience. If I had to sum up the conference in one Diane Churchill phrase, it would be the impact of visibility. Maureen Connor I believe everyone came away feeling that Emily Fuller women in art not only are getting a piece of the action, but also are making the action. Mary Ann Gillies I would also have to mention diversity. Joan Glueckman There were pulls and pushes from and in Eunice Golden different directions. Everyone wants some­ thing slightly different. Some women want Shirley Gorelick to move in separatist directions; others Diane Kaiser want to work from within. Some see the Cynthia Mailman movement as political; others as esthetic. Vemita Nemec No one is willing to compromise; yet somehow it stays together. Carol Peck And finally, I would have to characterize Brenda Price the conference in terms of change. There Marion Ranyak were the same faces—the women who have become identified with the movement—but Kate Resek there were many new faces, too. A second Rachel Rolon de Clet generation of feminist women in art is Halina Rusak emerging. Shifts in ideology and leadership were taking place, and it was exciting to Lucy Sallick see. There was a sense of confidence and of Rosalind Shaffer being in the lead—of attracting participa­ Eileen Spikol tion through positive action rather than negative sniping. Sharon Wybrants The strength of the movement comes just from this visibility, diversity and ability to change. The annual WCA meetings now provide the opportunity to assess the 99 Spring Street directions of the movement on a national New York, N.Y. 10012 level. Next year the sessions will be in New York; plans are already underway for (212)226-4167 another comprehensive overview of women in art.

Hours: Tues.—Sat. 12:00—6:00p.m. Membership information and publications de­ scribed in this article are available through Judith K. Brodsky, 59 Castle Howard Court, Princeton, New Jersey 08540.

12 by Heidi Blocher On Paula I had long been looking for her letters and diary notes, which I knew had been published, because Paula Modersohn- Modersohn-Becker Becker is the only woman painter of pre-contemporary periods known to me whom I consider truly an artist in her own right, rather than a gifted and capable follower of a great male artist, as I think several others have been. In addition, her painting has for me what I would call a female quality, not feminine in the tradi­ tional sense of something gentle, sweet, pretty and a little weak; rather, her works are very boldly conceived, painted with great simplicity, generosity and strength. Her forms are large; the sounds of her colors seem to emerge from deep down her throat. Her paintings suggest to me that she sensed and grasped life on a level which, I think, is particularly accessible to women. A certain occasional sentimentality can not be denied her—it prevails more in her writing than in her painting—but it is minimal considering the taste of her con­ temporaries in Germany. Being a painter myself, I turned to her writings because I knew that she was married (to a painter) and I was curious to see how she had managed to retain her independence and integrity as a painter, as well as the freedom and solitude necessary for her growth and development as a painter. On a recent trip to Europe I finally found a copy oiBriefe und Tagebuchblaetter von Paula Modersohn-Becker [Letters and Dia­ ry Entries of...], (1) and it turned out to be very interesting, although the artist does not express herself very explicitly or directly in writing, and one must read between the lines and put the pieces together. Paula Becker was born in Dresden on February 8, 1876. Her family moved to Bremen when she was 12. Later, in spite of her passionate desire to become a painter, her parents insisted that she go through a Selbstbildnis [Self-portrait], 1906. Oil tempera, 61x50cm. Kunstmuseum Basel. two-year training program to become a schoolteacher. She submitted and did her best. In 1896 she began her artistic educa­ Paula spent several months in Paris. These almost every piece of it. Only occasionally tion in Berlin and two years later she joined stays were essential to her artistic forma­ does she express sadness and there is little a young art colony in Worpswede, a small tion. In 1906 she suddenly left her hus­ evidence of depression. Also, there are no village near Bremen, in a landscape of band, again going to the great metropolis of signs of turning against herself, although heath and moors. There she met the painter modern painting, this time with the idea she is very critical of her own work. She Otto Modersohn, whom she married in that she might not return to him. She did often asks her relatives to forgive her for 1901. so, however, a year later, and died on seeming to be unloving, but one does not Once before and twice after her marriage November 20, 1907, at the age of 31, feel that this affects the basic happiness in following the birth of her first child. She left her, which she seems to carry around with nearly 400 paintings and 1,000 drawings, herself as a treasure which can’t be lost. A broad overview of the artist's work and too modern to be understood or recognized Very characteristic is this note in her diary life is given in Martha Davidson 's article before her death. The centennial of her after she left her husband: "Paula Modersohn-Becker: Struggle be­ birth year was recently honored with a great When Otto’s letters reach me, they are tween Life and Art, " The Feminist Art retrospective exhibition of her work at the like voices from the earth, and I myself Journal, Winter 1973-74. The artist is also Kunsthalle in Bremen. am like one who has died and is now in represented in Women Artists by Karen One of Paula’s most striking character­ heavenly fields and hears this earthly Petersen and J.J. Wilson: Harper & Row, istics, as it comes across in her writings, is cry. (Paris, M ay 26, 1906) 1976, and in Women Artists: 1550-1950 by that she appears to have been an unusually Ann Sutherland Harris and Linda Nochlin, happy person, especially as an artist. Her This feeling of a reality of her own that Los Angeles County Museum of Art and intense love for life, her exuberant joy of can not be disturbed by outside forces Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1976. being and feeling alive is expressed in pervades all of her writing, along with a

13 illusions, and only bit by bit does this dilemma appear. There never was any doubt in her that she was an artist above all, and she was so used to this that she hardly knew it. Her total dedication to art came early. During her first stay in Paris she wrote: I love art. I serve it on my knees and it m ust become mine. (Paris, 1900) While she was aware that this separated her somewhat from other people, especially from her relatives with whom she was otherwise close, she did not anticipate that her inner destiny could create a conflict with her role as a wife. Shortly before her marriage she wrote: Marriage is no reason for me not to become anything. (Worpswede, November 3, 1900) This from a woman who had no con­ scious interest or sympathy with women’s emancipation, and did not use the idea of women’s liberation to support the growth Madchenkopf vor Fenster [Head o f a young girl before a window], 1902. Oil tempera on slate and realization of her own independent adhered to canvas. 49x49cm. Private collection. individuality. (She makes several unsympa­ thetic remarks about women who empha­ feeling that the other realities of her life, the I do not think that it is her physical size their emancipatory trend, for instance “outside” ones, are somehow not quite real virginity which binds her, but the virginity through masculine clothing and behavior. to her. Her sense of this is again expressed of her soul which she kept throughout her In her early love letters she often addresses in the excuses she makes for appearing marriage. Otto as “My King,” and refers to herself unloving, for somehow not showing or and objects belonging to her in the dimin­ giving her real self. Her inner reality can After about one year of marriage, which, utive form). not be shared. After she has left her as far as one can see, was happy, she wrote After she has left her husband, still husband, she expresses several times her into her diary: without realization of the full breadth of deep regret for having caused this grief to I t is my experience that marriage does her conflict, she wrote to him from Paris: her family, but at the same time she wrote not make one happier. It takes away I must learn many things yet and then to her mother: the illusion which carried one’s whole I will perhaps become something. And I ’m beginning a new life now. Don’t being before, that there is a sister soul. you do know that this is the final goal disturb me, let me go on. It is In marriage one feels doubly that one which all my desires and all my striving wonderful. Last week I lived as though is not understood, because one’s whole aim at. (Paris, March 19, 1906) I was drunk. I believe I have achieved previous life aimed at finding someone This is a firm, determined statement and something which is good. (Paris, May who would understand. one believes it, much more than the idyllic 8, 1906) And she adds heroically: description of her double-striving together The same month she wrote to her sister And is it not perhaps better without with Otto which she gave to her aunt three Milly: that illusion, face to face with a great, years before and which again has the some­ what unreal tone of her love letters: I ’m becoming something—I ’m living lonesome truth? (Worpswede, March through the most intensely happy time 31, 1902) We quietly continue in our course of o f my life. Two months later she wrote about the life and quietly keep wanting that something should become o f us. Otto The reality inside her is hers alone, and benefits of that personal lonesomeness: in his way exactly thus as I, fo r he, too, only in her pictures does she communicate Rilke [he was a close friend] writes longs for something higher. And then some of this feeling. Her love letters to her somewhere that the spouses have the we tell each other about ourselves, fiance have an unreal feeling; the cute, duty to guard each other’s lonesome­ what each wants to make, and then sentimental, exuberant, imaginative but ness. Aren't these rather superficial one waits for the other. (Worpswede, somewhat strained assurances of her love lonesomenesses that need to be guard­ January 29, 1903) seem to hold back rather than to communi­ ed? Are not the true lonesomenesses cate what’s inside her. It comes as a relief lying quite open and unguarded? A nd I think the time came when Paula could to the reader when it finally breaks out of yet, no one penetrates to them, al­ wait no more. She was, it would appear, the her: though they sometimes wait for some­ stronger of the two as an individual, and M y love, I can not say my very last one with whom to walk hand in hand stronger as a painter. I do not know the things. They remain shyly within my­ through the valleys and meadows. But work of Otto Modersohn, who did not self and are afraid of the daylight. this waiting is maybe only weakness, attain Paula’s fame, but even from her own and the lonesomeness is strengthened Then sometimes they appear in the sympathetic and affectionate but some­ by the fa ct that no one comes. For this dusk or in the night. But you know, the what patronizing comments about his work world is so strange to them. Yet the lonesome walk is good and shows one one gathers that it was lovely, touching and time may come when you feel that I many a depth and shallowness which sentimental, rather than strong and bold don't need to say them, but that in two would not so easily see. like hers. She certainly stood out in their quiet hours you have flowed into me (Worpswede, M ay 2, 1902) Worpsweder art colony. and I into you. I believe it is my I do not see that Paula was very conscious As a person, too, she refers to him and virginity which binds me. (Berlin, of a conflict between her inner reality and addresses him as a gentle, simple, touching February 4, 1901) her outer one. She married, obviously, with man, tender and childlike in his purity.

14 There are, however, a few notes by Otto am quoting some of these sparse remarks in Modersohn at the end of the book (from his chronological order, showing the evolution diary) which reveal not at all a weak man of solitude from a luxury and a special who lacks personality. The selection is pleasure to a desperate need which could no limited to notes concerning Paula; they longer be repressed. express his great and obviously well assim­ In her first year of marriage she wrote: ilated admiration for her as a person and as My beloved husband, this is now the a painter. He was then the more “ad­ first evening of our first long separa­ vanced” painter, more established, 12 tion in marriage. It gives me a peculiar years older than she (she was his second feeling. You, in the company of your wife; they became engaged four months family, may not become conscious of after the death of his first wife whom Paula it. I wallow in it. Wallow in my knew), but he had the highest appreciation solitude, thinking o f you with love. of her otherwise unrecognized talent and You see, my love, you don t have to be appears to have been free of jealousy: sad or jealous of my thoughts when I Indeed, not one artist in Worpswede love my aloneness. I do it in order to interests me even approximately as think o f you quietly, undisturbed, and much as Paula. She has spirit, intelli­ piously. (Worpswede, Nov. 4, 1902) gence, imagination, she has a magnifi­ Three years later, she writes to her mother: cent sense of color and form. I'm full Bildnis Lee Hoetger [Portrait of Lee Hoetger], 1906. From time to time I have the strong o f hope. A s I can give her o f the desire to experience something yet. Intimate, so she can give me of the fact that you are in the background of That one is so nailed down when Great, Free, Lapidary. This mutual my freedom makes it so beautiful. I f I married is a bit hard... (Worpswede, give and take is wonderful. Our rela­ was free and didn 't have you, it would November 26, 1905) tionship is too beautiful, more beauti­ mean nothing to me. (Worpswede, ful than I ever thought, I am truly On January 17, 1906, shortly before her April 15, 1904) happy, she is a genuine artist as there sudden decision to leave her husband, she are few in the world, she has some­ To her aunt she wrote about the same writes to her sister Milly, who had com­ thing very rare. No one knows her, no absence of Otto’s: plained that her husband had left her alone for six weeks: one appreciates her. This will change Otto was in M unster with his parents some day. (June 15, 1903) for four days. And I played Paula Strange how the good things are There are no signs that their marriage Becker and slept in my former little distributed in life. For instance, noth­ slowly went bad or their relationship deteri­ white bed under the straw roof [where ing more dearly desired could happen orated or their feelings changed. There are she used to live and now still painted]. to me than to be alone for six weeks only a few signs that Paula could not bear This was great fu n fo r me. (Worps­ from time to time. Well, each shall togetherness at length. As with many wede, April 30, 1904) cany his own in patience. artists, the power of her private inner This image of the little white bed is a Two days later she gives us a clear, reality created an immense need for and touching symbol for the virginal state in concise summary of her reality in a letter to love of solitude, of being alone with herself which she lived inside and to which she her mother: and that inner happiness. This appears to longed back. For I will become something yet. How be the only reason why she finally, and, it Every now and then in the letters of her large or how small, that I can't say seems, almost suddenly, decided to leave married years there are indications of her myself, but it will be something com­ her husband. She never complains of love and need of solitude, of the fact that plete in itself. This everrushing drive married life, the burden of her household she feels most alive and that her love for her toward the goal, that is the most (her husband’s child of his first marriage, husband is most real when she is alone. I beautiful thing in life. Nothing else Elsbeth, lived with them; she painted one of equals this. — That I rush in myself, her most beautiful pictures of her), or that always, on and on, only sometimes her progress was inhibited by lack of resting, this I ask you to consider when privacy. I sometimes appear to be poor in love. It seems to me that she never quite gave It is a concentration o f my strength on up the “girl” in her, that inside she the one thing alone. I don't know remained a virgin who kept herself chaste whether one may still call this ego­ and ready for another but human groom, tism. At any rate it is the most noble through whom her art was continually one. (Worpswede, Jan. 19, 1906) conceived. This private happiness apart It is difficult to condemn Paula’s next from hers with Otto, as well as her sense of step after these deeply earnest, sincere, guilt over it, comes through in a few courageous and strong words. letters. Once, after Otto left for a few days, she wrote: During her marriage, Paula went to M y love, when I said good-bye to you, I Paris twice for about four to six weeks, in had a feeling such as Elsbeth must 1903 and 1905. She had studied there have when she has finally put us into before and it seems that these stays were a the carriage and sees us taking o ff fo r continuation of her education and did not Bremen, and thinks that now she has a involve any conscious conflicts between her day or two bef ore herself with no one and her husband. Her letters are loving and prohibiting anything to her. I feel so open. Why she suddenly left him in a much divinely free! And when I went over the more dramatic way in February, 1906, is mountain and listened to the larks, I not explained in her writings. She merely had such a quiet smile inside myself mentions to her mother on May 8, 1906: and a feeling came over me: "What Kniende Mutter mit Kind an der Brust [Kneel­ Yes, mother, I could no longer bear it does the world cost?" as one often has ing mother with child at the breast], c. 1907. and will probably never again be able it as a young girl. You know, just the Boettcherstrasse, Bremen. to bear it. Everything was too narrow

15 fo r me and was not and was less and She had gained great sureness in con­ less that which I need. sciousness; never could outside recog­ nition or success have given it to The correspondence with her husband her. She feels herself fulfilled as an continues and their love seems still to exist, artist, she stands at the one goal to although Paula’s seems to have moved, so which her “everrushing drive” has led to speak, outside of her innermost heart her. She walks in the light. Even now where she lives alone with her art in the this one thing, her art, remains above greatest happiness ever. She wrote to Otto: all else, but with the great calm of There is much o f you which all lived in having found herself she recognizes me and which has left me. I must wait conditionality as the law of life, and to see whether it will ever return or out of this new maturity she is able to whether something else comes instead. give to art what belongs to art, and to (Paris, April 9, 1906) men what belongs to men. She tells him a couple of times to try to This was written in 1920. Today, with get used to the idea that their separation greater distance and living in an age which may be for good and that she is being questions everything and does not easily “tested.” believe that all is well, we may be more During this time in Paris Paula works critical. very strongly toward her artistic maturity. I do not think that an artist can reach the She meets a sculptor, Bernhard Hoetger, Elsbeth, 1902. Oil tempera on cardboard, “one goal of her everrushing drive” and who becomes a close friend, and who helps 89x71cm. Ludwig-Roselius-Sammlung, Boet- keep working. And I believe that condition­ her greatly with her work. She wrote to him tcherstrasse. All photos courtesy Graphisches ality as the law of life is exactly what the in May 1906: Kabinett Kunsthandel Wolfgang Werner KG, artist with her idea of the absolute and her That you believe in me, this is fo r me Bremen. immense hunger for it cannot accept, and the most beautiful faith in the world, eventually ruins herself because of it. I because I believe in you. What good is once more to create something beauti­ cannot help wondering whether Paula’s the faith o f others for me when I do not ful, I will be glad and contented to “submission” to her married life (as I see it) believe in them? [Her husband?] You have a place where I can work quietly, would have lasted, or whether things would have given me most wonderful things, and will be grateful for that piece of have again become “too narrow” for her, you have given me myself. I have love which is given to me. I f only one in spite of the expansion of property and the gained courage. M y courage always remains healthy and does not die too symbolic integration of her little white bed stood behind locked doors and did not early. (Paris, November 18, 1906) into their life. know what to do; you have opened the One may ponder about these words. Like One of the poetic fables in Paula’s diary, written in 1900, may suggest that Gallwitz’ doors. You are a great donor to me, I, the rest of her unlived life, they are open to too, begin to believe now that I ’m as many kinds of interpretation as there are interpretation makes some sense, or at least becoming something. And when I minds and outlooks on life. To me they that Paula wished to reach the attitude which he ascribes to her. She tells this think about this, tears o f happiness seem meek after that strong, fully rounded- slightly sentimental story in a language come to my eyes. I thank you fo r your off and non-ambiguous statement Paula imitative of Nietzsche’s biblical German good existence. You have done me so made to her mother shortly before leaving much good. I was a little lonely. Otto, and they seem to express resignation. Zarathustra, which Paula admired. I quote it in abbreviated form. This last modest sentence tells much What went on in her between these two It tells of the Land of Longing. Paula about Paula’s last years. It speaks of a lone­ letters? stood by a lake and was looking over the liness which is different from the desired The author of the preface to my source water. Her eyes met another pair of large, one mentioned earlier. In Hoetger, Paula book, S.D. Gallwitz, interprets Paula’s deep eyes which looked deep down into her found a man equal to herself in size, and decision in the following way: soul and held her. They were the eyes of one who also recognized her as being equal. Longing. She looked into them and forgot Possibly no other event is more crucial to the world around her. Then she began to artistic growth than this. notice a crowd of people about her, and It appears that her husband wanted to they all looked into the eyes of Longing and join her in Paris but that she did not want each cried for the desire of his heart. They him to. Hoetger spoke to her and somehow forgot all else. They were sad people. convinced her to let her husband come. Paula, too caressed the desire of her heart Otto stayed with her in Paris from the fall and cried out for it. Then she heard a voice on 1906 to spring 1907. They then returned and was able to take her eyes off the eyes of together to Worpswede and continued their Longing. She looked toward the sun, and old life. Paula was pregnant. It appears the sun called to her: “Go home, into your from her earlier writings that she looked house, and work. Think of the people forward to motherhood as she had looked around you and love them. And you will forward to marriage. recover.” And a great strength came over What brought about the change in Paula Paula. She threw the desire of her heart out which made it possible for her to return to into the lake. There it shone on the bottom. her husband is not clear. She wrote to her And peace came into her heart. sister from Paris: The very ornamental way and artificial In the spring Otto and I will return tone in which the actual story is written home. The man is touching in his love. suggest to me that it is an attempt at self­ We want to try to buy Brunjes house hypnosis rather than the account of a real [where her studio with the little bed inner experience. I do not believe that was] and to form our life more freely Selbstbildnis am 6. Hochzeitstag [Self-portrait Paula succeeded in throwing away the and broadly about us, with all kinds of on the sixth wedding anniversary], 1906. Oil desire of her heart. animals around us. I ’m thinking like tempera on cardboard, 101x72cm. Ludwig Ros- Whatever her attitude was with which this now: I f the good Lord allows me elius-Sammlung, Boettcherstrasse. she returned to Otto, it was not put to the

16 test. Barely three weeks after the birth of her first child, Paula died unexpectedly, on November 21, 1907, 31 years old. A family letter tells of her strange death: she was examined and allowed to get up. She was ANNIE BELL led into the living room and happily sat in an armchair between her husband and her brother. Candles were lit, it was “like Christmas.” She exclaimed: WATERCOLOR COLLAGES------“Oh, how happy I am, how happy I am !'' Suddenly her fe et become heavy, June 18 through July 6,1977 her breath is choking, she says in a low voice: “What a shame!” A n d dies... Her sculptor friend Hoetger created a THE ALTERNATE SPACE GALLERY AT WESTBROADWAY monument of a dying mother to mark her grave. Of a dying mother...he who sup­ posedly understood her, what did he mean by it? These are mysteries. Maybe her death was just a medical event. Where Gallwitz believes that Paula died with refound unity and clarity within herself, and speaks of “the beautiful line of Paula’s inner develop­ ment closing itself to a ring,” a large DONNA BYARS question mark remains for me, as large as the unlived portion of her life. April 30—May 25 I believe it is not impossible for a person to have a feeling of how far away his or her death is, even while still in full health. Van Gogh predicted the age he would reach almost exactly six or seven years before he A.I.R. Gallery died. If an artist cannot die before having 97 Wooster Street reached his or her peak, and cannot go on 11 living after having reached it, then maybe New York (212) 966-0799 Paula Becker had reached hers. On July 26, 1900, before her engagement to Otto, she wrote into her diary: While painting today my thoughts came and went, and I want to write them down fo r my loved ones. I know I won’t live very long. But is this sad? Is SLIDES OF a festivity more beautiful because it June 23-24-25 lasts longer? A n d my life is a festivity, WOMEN’S ART a short, intense festivity. M y senses are becoming finer, as though I should perceive all, all yet in the few years ACROSS THE U.S.A. which will be left to me. About two years later she writes down a detailed description of how her grave Parti SOHO 20 should be done. Paula Becker appears to me as a person 99 Spring Street, New York City 10012 who lived throughout her life as her Tel. (212) 226-4167 Tues.— Sat. 12—6 powerful inner drive told her to. She did not analyze, question, explain. Even her death was “lived” in this way. I am impressed with the clarity, directness and strength with which she did what had to be done. p | Q n c JUNE 4-23, 1977 She never seems to be torn by doubts, neither about her work, her talent, her personality, nor her love. Her duty seems to have been always unconsciously clear to her and she was able to recognize and follow molkin whatever orders she received from inside. She took full risks, following her feeling, A e m b e r without trying to understand, arrange and prevent. She lived from the inside out.

1. BriefeundTagebuchblaettervon Paula Modersohn- uic/tbrociduiciu gallery Becker, Kurt W olff Verlag, Munich, 1922. All excerpts are from this collection. 431 West Broadway N.Y.C., 10012 (212) 966-2520

17 The comparison of women and flowers, with an unmistakable stress on the vaginal basis of the simile, is a traditional topic in our culture. It happens that a connection Notes on between this topic and O’Keeffe can be suggested. In the summer of 1929 she was Qeorgia O’Keeffe’s Imagery “at Mabel’s at Taos” and she notes that this is the “house that D.H. Lawrence had the Summer before he went to Italy.” (3) by Lawrence Alloway She is not the kind of person, I judge, to rejoice in accidental proximity to a celebrity but these are her words. She was interested enough in Lawrence to make the point. “She painted a haunting mysterious The recent use made of O’Keeffe by Why? Consider the then newly-published passage through the dark portal of an iris, women artists and the fact that she is a poetry of Lawrence, Birds, Beasts and making the first recognized step inside the fam ous hermit have both isolated her from Flowers (1923), which included poetry darkness of female identity.” (1) The artist the rest of art history. We have neglected begun in Tuscany in 1920 and finished in of course is Georgia O’Keeffe, the painting matters like this, for instance: writing New Mexico in 1923. In the poem Sicilian Black Iris, and the authors Miriam Scha- about Precisionism in 1960 M artin Fried­ Anemones he refers to the flowers as “caves piro and Judy Chicago. This reading of the man referred to O’Keeffe’s “dominance in of darkness.” (4) Among the numerous painting and of other O’Keeffes, is the pre­ the movement.” (2) If we think of her in this poems on fruit he writes about pomegran­ vailing one and I want to consider whether art-historical context it may be possible to ates and peaches in terms of their fissures it is tenable or not. It is clear that the flower propose a source for O’Keeffe’s enlarged and stresses in figs, ‘the fissure, the yoni,” is taken by them as an unqualified symbol and frontal flowers. Francis Picabia’s I See “the flowering all inward and womb-fibril- of “female identity” and that this identity is Again In Memory, My Dear Udnie (ca. led.” (5) In the introductory prose for this declared in exclusively sexual terms. It is 1914), was shown at Alfred Stieglitz’ part of the book Lawrence writes: “For true that the analogy of petals and labia is Gallery 291 in January, 1915. O’Keeffe and fruits are all of them female, in them lies inescapable, but is it everything? It is Stieglitz met in 1916; she could not have the seed. And so when they break and show described as “the first recognized step” in seen the exhibition but the way seems clear the seed, then we look into the womb and this direction: is it? Let us see what happens for her to have been aware of Picabia’s work see its secrets. So it is that the pomegranate to the painting if we try to give it a back­ through Stieglitz as intermediary. Picabia’s is the apple of love to the Arab, and the fig ground. painting is part cubist, part biomorphic, an has been a catch-word for the female fissure extension of Marcel Duchamp’s The Bride for ages.” (6) As Lawrence observes, the (1912). Picabia’s petal-like forms, their symbolism is general, with the status of a AUTHOR'S NOTE overlapping, their firm tonal gradients, “catch-word.” Thus O’Keeffe could use A word o f explanation as to why this is the first have analogues in Black Iris and in Jack-in- sexualized flower-imagery knowing that article on Georgia O Keeffe illustrated solely by the-Pulpit 2 and 3, (both 1930). O’Keeffe the theme was common, but because it was a painting by Picabia. I expected when I wrote it does not maintain Picabia’s plant-body- painted by an artist who was herself a to use the following O'Keeffes as illustrations: machine correspondences, but emphasizes woman the image could have personal Black Iris (1926), Jack-in-the-Pulpit 2, 3 (1930), the botanical and human parallel. This undercurrents that it did not habitually Open Clam Shell, Closed Clam Shell (both source may account for the scale of O’Keef­ 1926), and The Lawrence Tree (1929). However, possess. Convention and candor, cliche and fe’s flowers, above “life size,” and it reveals O’Keeffe has a representative who controls self-reference could be combined; the art is reproduction rights, not only of works in the too that for all her stylization these paint­ both declarative and discreet. artist’s possession but o f other works as well. ings amount to a naturalization and solem­ Schapiro and Chicago, when they write For instance, permission to use an O 'Keeffe in nization of Picabia’s imagery. Thus what about “the first recognized step into the the Metropolitan Museum of Art was contin­ was specifically erotic in him becomes darkness of female identity” are simplify­ gent on this representative’s consent. Availabil­ curbed, but not suppressed, in her floral ing perhaps what O’Keeffe had actually ity of the photographs depended on the repre­ adaptation, which argues against too sim­ achieved. It was not the first step—the sentative’s approval of my manuscript. When I ple a sexual reading. “caves of darkness” and a host of other write an article with an artist I naturally share the manuscript completely with the artist, but references exist. What O’Keeffe did was to when an artist is in the public domain and not bring a literary theme into painting with a known personally to me I do not expect approv­ singular emphasis. Her flowers in close-up al before publishing. are neither still life nor botanical studies of The situation is interesting at a time when isolated blooms. She transformed a tradi­ many artists are trying to retain copyright of tional poetic motif into monumental visual their works after sale. This may be a source o f form (with, I think, a suggestion from income and control tb them, but there is the risk Picabia), but art critics, bound to the of artist-centered (or agent-centered) regulation separation of the arts, have missed the of art criticism. Under these circumstances one might easily feel it necessary to write articles for cultural normalcy of the sexual image. O'Keeffe instead of about her (or whichever Thus the Schapiro-Chicago reading is right artist might be involved). Perhaps in future and wrong: the image is sexual, but to articles that conform to the artists ’ preferences classify it as “cunt imagery,” as they will be illustrated, whereas the sign o f indepen­ originally did, is a brutal simplification of dent, innovating or dissenting articles will be the fabric of the image. no illustrations at all. Let us consider the resonance of flower Reproductions of the cited works can be and fruit imagery (they can be taken to­ found in Georgia O’Keeffe (Whitney Museum gether here), as in Christine Rossetti’s o f Art, 1970) and Georgia O’Keeffe (Viking image of Lizzie in Goblin Market: Press, 1976): Black Iris (Whitney, plate 40, Viking 39): Jack-in-the-Pulpit 2 and 3 (Whitney Like a fruit-crowned orange-tree 66 and 67, Viking 39 and 38); Open and Closed White with blossoms honey-sweet Clam Shells (Whitney 41 and 42, Viking 77 and Francis Picabia, I See Again In Memory My Sore beset by wasp and bee... (7) 78), The Lawrence Tree (Whitney 61, Viking Dear Udnie, 1913. M useum o f M odem Art, 57). The arboreal image is complex of course N. Y., N.Y., Hillman Periodicals Fund. inasmuch as Rossetti’s fruit primarily rep­

18 resent the temptation that Lizzie resists and The protal image is exquisitely sculpted, 3. Georgia O’Keeffe by Georgia O'Keeffe. Viking to which Laura succumbs. but the idea of danger and mortality are Press, 1976. Unpaginated 4. The Complete Poems of D.H. Lawrence. Eds. V. de We must not look at goblin men. also present. It seems like a version of Sola Pinto and Warren Roberts. Viking Press, 1971. We must not buy their fruits: Rilke’s intuition of flowers as a system of p. 307. Linda Nochlin links O'Keeffe to Lawrence on communication between the living and the the basis of their common search for primal nature Who knows upon what soil they fed (Women Artists, 1550-1950, by Ann Sutherland Harris Their hungry thirsty roots (8) dead (he speculates on the resentment of and Linda Nochlin. Alfred A. Knopf, 1976. p.67). She the dead). The trouble with the recent cites O’Keeffe's The Lawrence Tree, 1929, as an This implication of a connection, via fruit, acknowledgment of their mutual interest. O’Keeffe’s to the underworld, to the dead, is a major centralist reading of O’Keeffe is that this vertical view (upward) of the tree at night is strikingly theme of Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus, as in expanding web of references is curtailed for similar to the poem “Bare Fig Trees” by Lawrence propagandist purposes. (Complete Poems, Op. Cit. p. 298): Rather like an octopus, but strange and sweet-myriad- We have to do with flowers, vine-leaf O’Keeffe wrote about her flowers in limbed octopus: fruit. 1939: “Well—I made you take time to look Like a nude, like a rock-living, sweet-fleshed sea-a- nemone, They speak the language not only of at what I saw and when you took time to Flourishing from the rock in a mysterious arrogance. the year. really notice my flower you hung all your Out of the darkness rises a motley own associations with flowers on my flow­ Let me sit down beneath the many branching candelabrum manifest, er...” (12) My sense of this is that it is not a That lives upon this rock... having perhaps the gleam of jealousy simple disclaimer of the sexual content, but 5. Ibid. pp.278-9, 282. a complaint that this aspect should have 6. Ibid. p. 277. (The image of the fissure is frequent in O f the dead about it, who invigorate O’Keeffe’s work, from Dark Abstraction and Corn, been made so much of. The persistent Dark, both 1924, through Jack-in-the-Pulpit 4, 5, and the earth. (9) interpretation of the flowers in this man­ 6. all 1930, to Black Place, 3, 1944. ner, by her contemporaries between the 7. The Pre-Raphaelites and their Circle. Ed. C.Y. Lang. Rilke binds the living and the dead through University of Chicago Press 1975. p.140. wars and by feminists later, is more than 8. Ibid. p.131. growing things. Death is strongly implied 9. Sonnets to Orpheus, by Rainer Marie Rilke. Trans, by O ’Keeffe’s imagery, too, but in another accidental. What has been missed however by M.D. Hester Norton. W .W . Norton, 1962. I, 14, way. is the cluster of meanings of which the p.43. vegetal throats are only a part, particularly 10. O'Keeffe, Op. Cit. Barbara Rose in an interesting Two paintings of 1926, the same year as review o f this book (New York Review of Books, March Black Iris, are apposite here: Open Clam the concern with death, either as sterility or 31,1977) suggests that the artist is pretty uncommu­ Shell and Closed Clam Shell. Even without as the remote nourishment of flourishing nicative in the text, but I think there is a good deal of plant life. The flowers and the later pelvises iconongraphical interest to be learned from it. Words, the Schapiro-Chicago manifesto the hu­ whatever people say, have their precisions. man anatomical references are striking. of O’Keeffe are linkable, then, provided 11. O’Keeffe Ibid. She is writing about Two Jim son one can see death in flowers and life in Weeds, 1938; there is also a 1932 painting Jim son However in her recent book O’Keeffe gives Weed, (reproduced in Georgia O’Keeffe by Lloyd bones. significant contextual information about Goodrich and Doris Bry. Whitney Museum of Ameri­ can Art, 1970. plate 76. these paintings. Concerning the landscape 12. Exh. cat., An American Piace, 1938. Reprinted in 1. Miriam Schapiro, Judy Chicago, “Female Imagery.” O'Keeffe, Op. Cit. east of Taos she wrote: Womanspace Journal, Summer 1973. p.11. The plain was covered with the grey 2.ThePrecisionistVlewln American Art. By M artin L. Friedman. Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1960. p.8. sage that in a few places crept up a bit against the base of the mountain, looking like waves lapping against the sore. It was a wide, quiet area. But out in those hills I picked up mussel shells in groups all turned to stone— prob­ ably millions of years old. They some­ times even had a little bit of the SQUARE SUN SERIES original blue color. (10) May 31— June 18 In this passage she treats the desert as a sea, dust as if it were water: dry and eroded Ingber Gallery 3 East 78, NYC New Mexico becomes oceanic. The prime­ val landscape awakens a vision of geologi­ cal time. The ancient shells were certainly in her mind as she painted the clam shells (they are illustrated a page away from the text quoted here). The sexual reading is not to be dismis­ sed, the interior of the open shell has a pinkish zone, but it is also, in its cool grays, as much a sign of geological process as of biology. Cunt or petrifact? A comparable duality is revealed by O’Keeffe’s commen­ tary on her painting of Two Jimson Weeds (1938): It is a beautiful white trumpet flower Cora Cohen with strong veins that hold the flower open.. .The Jimson weed blooms in the cool of the evening—one moonlight night at the Ranch I counted one Susan Fortgang hundred and twenty-five flowers. The flowers die in the heat of the day. Don Juan speaks of uses the Yaqui Indians make of the Jimson weed that almost May 5— 28 make one afraid. When I found that they are poisonous, I dug them up but in Abiquiu a few keep on growing Soho Center for Visual Artists 114 Prince Street New York City 10012 persistently. (11)

19 they fuse with all primary matter. Aware of M . S t u a r t continued from page 9 the symbolic connotations man throughout a new activity terrifies the primitive because the ages has attributed to rocks, Stuart in such an action singles one out from the her journal includes references to stones group and more importantly is memorable. used as temples, fetishes, and symbols of To exist in a continuous and repetitive the psyche as well as lines of poetry in which present, which is cyclical by nature, is the Blake, Borges, Gide, Lorca and Ruskin primitive’s goal, obtainable only by follow­ reflect on the nature of sand, soil, and rocks ing paradigms in the form of rituals, which and elaborate on their metaphorical value. symbolically place one in a type of eternity. She mentions that stones, because of their A myth originated by Stuart corroborates incompressible and invulnerable quality, this idea of anhistorical as opposed to have been often viewed as immortal: exter­ historical time: nal referents for the soul of man. In her art, 1810 Cuyamaca. The coyote sang of however, she chooses to break up the rocks, cycles. The woman collected every to pulverize this symbolic, integral whole­ grain of sand and placed each in ness. Her doing so suggests she is opening baskets. She would pass her life up her spirit, spreading it out, dispersing it counting, carefully sorting time and in her work, which is truly representative of space. She put time and space in her innermost self. She allows this stone, different baskets depending upon how this image of herself, to merge with the the light of the sun or moon touched world instead of attaching to it any unique the woven circles. Those whose eyes and separate wholeness. “ Style is the were dilated by desire had taken her shaping of forms to fit one’s self,” Stuart land— vines and roses— acorns and wrote in her journal. “If one takes the risk, trees yielding incense—pink abalone Niagara Gorge Path Relocated, 1975. Rocks, one’s art is one’s self laid bare.” cups and the bud of her womb. Now earth, muslin-backed paper, 420x62". Artpark, The Rock Book Series as well as the Lewiston, N.Y. they removed her from her history. She scrolls are so filled with the spirit of the was charged with turning destiny into earth and yet so devoid of traditional forms significance only infinite repetition the rhythm of waves in which they were of composition and subject matter that they remained. originally formed, but in their present state echo the fullness and emptiness character­ Since Stuart’s books are to be grasped all at quietness prevails: istic of Zen. Her reliance on rocks to give once without turning the pages and without shells contain the waves in continuous form to her art suggests connections with going through the usual time sequence formation/continuity is so quiet no the famous Japanese Zen rock garden of necessary to familiarize oneself with a one listens/surrender all to silence Ryoan-ji, which evokes an emptiness free of book, they evade the rigors of historical when we return to the root we gain the temporal associations. In her art Stuart time and are more akin to mythic time. meaning. creates a symbol for the original, formless, When she pulverizes rocks, Stuart be­ undifferentiated, and noumenal self; the comes the coyote who sings of cycles in the The universal ocean of nothingness, she rock, losing its individual associations legend cited above, and her actions take returns these shells, which she strips of though its location is retained in the title, place in a transhistorical time, symbolically individual appearances so they can merge becomes the original face before it was identical with the periods in which the into a universal wholeness: “places without born, to paraphrase an early koan. The surface of the world has undergone tremen­ time, matter without memory, without scrolls are in a sense close up images of the dous upheavals. Ritual, which, according signs except natural erosion and growth.” face of a rock. If one thinks of the tradition to Eliade, always occurs in consecrated Essentially her art is a symbolic act, for of Chinese and Japanese painting in which spaces and in sacred time, gives credence to she is working on a microcosm, removing miniscule travelers approach grandiose her actions. Pulverizing becomes a sacred the dross as she reveals its universal spirit. mountains in far off distances and then act in which she breaks up sedimentary- Under her hand rocks submit to a type of thinks of a painting, such as High Falls, rock and with it the fossilized creatures baptism: dying to the world, they are born New York, #50 (1975-76), the comparison making up its structure, dissolving their in­ to the formless realm of the spirit in which is enlightening. Stuart seems to have taken dividuality and returning them to the great the idea of a Japanese landscape painting nothingness from which they came. In her but placed the viewer within inches, instead journal she indicates that she is aware of the of miles, of the rock face. It is as if Sessu structure of the rocks she collects. “With had painted a greatly magnified detail of a me,” she relates, “I carry stones, shells, mountain instead of an entire landscape. bones, teeth, fragments of coral, skeletons Individuality merges into universality; the of diatoms and radiolaria and amorphous rock face is all rocks, all matter distilled in pellets of excrement.” She notes “Particles Stuart’s art into a continuous field that of these structures range in size texturally becomes a metaphor for the spirit. from microscopic grains through silt and Michelle Stuart’s emphasis on an undif­ sand upward to very coarse pieces.” The ferentiated, but nuanced impression of a oolitic shapes digging into the surface of the rock surface or plain may have an origin in paper of her scrolls are mirrors of the rock’s her family’s past. Because her parents decomposition: came to the United States from Australia, her interest in the terrain of the desert may Some rocks become so profoundly be an unconscious identification with the altered that little or no trace of their geography of Australia in which the heart original structure or mineral associa­ of the country, the outback, is a vast and tion remains. There is no beginning largely barren plain. And the geography of and no end...only change. Australia is repeated in the general layout Stuart mentions “Working with repetition of parts of Southern California in which to eliminate repetition/surrender all to the inland desert areas contrast with habitable current.” In sedimentary rocks she views #38, (detail). Four sheets: rocks, earth, rag coastland. Instead of viewing the realm of fossilized shells as eternally submitting to paper, 13x10” unit. Photo: Eric Pollitzer. the spirit, then, as a dimly lit subterranean

20 world as did the abstract expressionists, she regards it as an open, barren and sunlit terrain. In a Zen sense her silent desert is another name for the noumenal self, the HERESIES: vast ocean of nothingness from which all being comes. In the light of the history of the United A FEMINIST States, Stuart’s affiliations with Asia are natural. The first inhabitors of America PUBLICATION came from Asia. In the 19th century Transcendentalists became enchanted with ON ART AND Eastern thought and accommodated some of its ideas into their philosophy. Recogniz­ POLITICS ing this rapport with the Orient, Stuart has blended certain elements of it into her art. An idea oriented journal de­ Her large works call forth associations with voted to the examination of art and politics from a feminist per­ the earth and Japanese scrolls, with the spective — including research, West and also the East. theoretical articles, analysis, fic­ She views wide open spaces as part of the tion poetry, visual art essence of the Western United States and chooses to create large unified scrolls, unmarred by compositional techniques, to Issue No. 2 Patterns of Communica­ imbue her work with this openness. The tion and Space Among Women — May. 1977 history of the Americas is mainly the history Issue No. 3 Lesbian Art and Artists — of the land itself, and on this point her ideas September. 1977 parallel some of those of Mark Rothko and Issue No. 4 Women's Traditional Art Barnett Newman. Often compared to the and Artmaking art of both of these artists, her work results Issue No. 5 The Great Goddess from similar attitudes that go deeper than the realm of mere appearances. Like SUBSCRIBE NOW Rothko she seeks to return to a transcend­ — one ye.ar subscription ent, primordial state akin to the one described in Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy. 4 issues $10. Her radiant fields, much more stark and lacking the sensuous color of Rothko’s HERESIES, BOX 766, CANAL STREET STA. painting, aim at coming to terms with the NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10013 existential void albeit in Zen terms. Unlike Rothko, however, she does not create a sublime art, for the sublime suggests that which elicits the most powerful emotions man is capable of feeling, and Stuart’s art evokes neither loneliness nor tension nor terror but an aloneness and emptiness independent of man. With Rothko and also with Newman, she shares an interest in atavism, only her emphasis is not anthropo- eileen spikol centric, it is spiritual—that which is a part of man and yet separate from him. Hers is an art in which anthropomorphism has April 30 through May 25 been replaced with scientific metaphors and Greco-Roman mythology with geo­ mythology: the moon is no longer equated with Diana, nor the earth with Gea, even though the symbolic evocations of these SOHO 20 99 Spring St. / New York, N.Y. 10012 226-4167 regions are invoked. She parallels Newman in that she is fascinated by Indian mounds, temples, fetishes, rituals, but she is far more interested in coming to terms with the great unknowable, to use one of Newman’s favored expressions, than in indicating the terror it has evoked in primitives. ILISE GREENSTEIN Although Stuart, with her interest in earth as a primary medium, appears to have affiliations with earth artists, her represented by relationship to them is tangential. Many earth artists, such as the late Robert GLORIA LURIA GALLERY Smithson, are scouts, surveyors, and ad­ Miami, Florida venturers, in comparison with Michelle 1128 Kane Concourse, Bay Harbor Island Stuart who, like a Pueblo, regards nature (305) 865-3060 as an inextricable part of her universe, in New York City which must be accepted, not challenged. (212) ES2-0954 Smithson is the modern counterpart of mythological Titans, credited with building

21 awesome monuments, such as Tiryns and environment, not surface characteristics of terms would not be a piece of jewelry; it Stonehenge. Stuart belongs more with Zen a place. would be an intaglio formed by the crush­ monks and Navaho sand painters who Stuart’s art differs from Smithson’s pri­ ing of the cement into fine particles. intuit their destiny as inextricably united marily in her attitudes toward the desert Differing again from earth artists, Stuart with nature, who define themselves as which approach the outlook of a Zen monk. uses earth as a pigment, but unlike tradi­ extensions of their environment. While She regards it paradoxically as nothingness tional painters she does not employ the earth artists use soil as their primary pursuant with beingness, while Smithson in usual binders of water, egg, or oil. Her medium, rarely do they change its struc­ writing about Michael Heizer referred to it process is analogous to the grinding of ture. Usually they emphasize its formal as a containment of the vacancy of Thana- pigments that was carried on in numerous properties and intimate relationship to site. tos. (2) Smithson takes the second law of workshops before the manufacture of tubes Earthworks are generally created in situ, thermodynamics referring to dissolution of of paint in the 19th century. Her creations and many earth artists attempt to eschew a energy into entropy, into ultimate stasis. in a sense become sketches that record the marketplace definition of art by creating His concept of nothingness is the primordi­ first step in preparing some Renaissance works unable to be shown in galleries, al state of the world at its beginning and the and Baroque drawings when artists rubbed works oftentimes documented solely ultimate outcome of its decline. In contrast powdered pigment onto paper to prepare a through photographs. Even though Stuart Stuart views nothingness as synonymous surface conducive to creation. includes in exhibitions snapshots of the with the spirit, man’s core of being, Again, Michelle Stuart views the silent sites from which her samples of ore are paralleling Meister Eckhardt who wrote desert as a metaphor for the spirit of man. taken, her photographs are adjuncts to her that God is “the simple ground, the still Refusing to regard it in existential terms as art and do not bear the dialectic burden of desert, the simple silence.” (3) Smithson’s the terrifying void at man’s center or in site to nonsite that Smithson made such an concern is with eventual inertness, with Smithson’s terminology “the vacancy of important aspect of his art. The emphasis time as a place without motion.(4) He Thanatos,” she thinks of it in Zen terms, on the literal presence of earth itself, a differs from Stuart who creates metaphors both positively and negatively. She regards crucial aspect of earth art, is not Stuart’s of timelessness in the form of impressions it as the noumenal origin of all being, which major concern. While the specific feeling of of grains of sand. Smithson’s interest in goes beyond the ineluctable limits of reason a site assumes great importance for her— inertness and entropy at times paralleled and is evoked in her art by impressions of she once rejected a location because she that of Sol LeWitt who once proposed pulverized matter, symbolizing spiritual thought it ominous—she goes beyond its encasing a piece of Cellini’s jewelry in a ether. The spirit, endowing each particle of specific qualities to arrive at universal block of cement. In contrast, Stuart would earth with presence, is the designation of truths. She is a landscape painter in so far pulverize this block, this image of separate pure Being, begets and yet is not begotten, as she attempts to discover essences of the inertness, to reveal the spirit, which in her is from the beginning, is before and during and after. Three basic attitudes, then, giving rise to Michelle Stuart’s art are atavism, geomyth­ presence who was always working but ology and Zen. Atavism, referring to never too busy for advice, consolation, REE MORTON (1937-1977) genetic recombinations in which an organ­ discussion and friendship. ism or any of its parts is reflective of Her work, like her life, was enriched by ancestral traits more remote than the The loss of Ree Morton—born Helen firsthand experience with this regional immediate parents, is evident in the Marie Riley 40 years ago in Tarrytown, variety, and by her ability to produce crushed sedimentary rocks that lose speci­ New York—is a grief shared throughout straightforward pieces tempered with a ficities of microscopic plant and animal life the art community. Ree had the rare humor that never undercut her intentions. and both literally and metaphorically be­ opportunity to both instruct and make art She was an opponent of mystification in come once again primal matter. Geomyth­ in a number of locations outside New York sculpture and painting, and a champion of ology is reflected in her myths about the (Boulder, Colorado, southern California, clarity and legibility borne out by her earth’s surface in which anthropomorphic Philadelphia and Chicago are four of the work’s concern with identifiable icons of dieties are replaced by falls, faults, thrusts, many that spring to mind) and her absence decoration, theater and audience. Her drumlins and kettles. Implicit in her is felt all the more strongly by her numer­ work was accessible without being facile, writings and art is Gea, mother earth; but ous students and colleagues who hadn’t and her permutations of environmental here, this mythological being is replaced by the chance to say goodbye to this cheerful sculpture established a genre that was the substance it symbolizes. In an intri­ more than the sum of its parts of sculpture guing inversion earth becomes more tanta­ and painting. She was enjoying the re­ lizing and poetic than the age old symbol wards of her energetic production and had personifying it. And Zen, a background to exhibits during the past year at the Wo­ Stuart’s actions, informs her work in a man’s Building in Los Angeles, the pervasive sense. Zen, an anti-intellectual Mandeville Center at UC San Diego, and immediate realization (Satori) of the Artpark in Lewiston, New York, the W hit­ paradoxical but not mutually exclusive ney Annual and the Walter Kelley Gallery states of being and nonbeing, is evident in in Chicago. the way in which her creations celebrate the Ree’s death in a Chicago car accident in origin of a new being, the work of art, and early May interrupted a career seemingly at the same time the dissolution of her sedi­ at the height of its realized potential, and mentary material into nonbeing, an anal­ it’s some consolation that she had been ogy of primal, undifferentiated, and form­ working—and happy with the results— less matter. until the last. She leaves two daughters, and a son. A small show of her work is 1. All quotations, unless otherwise noted, will be planned for June in the windows of NYU’s taken from this journal. Grey Art Gallery, and an exhibition of her 2. Smithson, Robt., “Sedimentation of the Mind: Earth Projects," Artforum, September 1968. most recent pieces is scheduled for 1978 at 3. Cassirer, Ernst. Language and Myth. Susanne K. the Droll/Kolbert Gallery. Langer, trans. Dover, New York, 1953, p. 74. 4. Smithson, Robt., “Entropy and the New Monu­ — Carrie Rickey ments,” Artforum, June 1966. Ree Morton, early 1976. Photo: Becky Cohen.

22 tbviews half the participants develop and individu­ novice California women artists. ate further. The California art scene is fleshed out Back down in the Southland, every kind not by public museums or private galleries, of exhibition place—museum, college but by the gallery spaces at the colleges and California Reviews space, private gallery—featured women. universities that freckle the state. These Besides the historical survey, the L.A. institutions did their bit in the concerted The California art scene, second only to County Museum presented a series of films swell of women’s shows in and around Los New York—and then, not always second— by “International Women Filmmakers,” Angeles. General surveys were mounted at in its size, professionalism, and vitality, going back as far as 1921 and tracing Cerritos, Santa Ana and Santa Monica City inaugurated 1977 by turning its attention to women’s roles as directors and writers for Colleges. A photography survey hung at two topics: California architecture and the movies, in the United States, Germany, Golden West College. At Chapman College design and contemporary women artists. Italy, Japan, Russia, France and England. in Orange County, material from the Surveys of architecture and design styles Among the better known figures included Women’s Information Exchange was fea­ and methods on the West Coast were were Lina Wertmuller, Ruth Gordon, Joan tured. A retrospective of the Laguna Beach mounted at San Francisco’s DeYoung Didion, Agnes Varda, Penelope Gilliatt, Impressionist Anna A. Hills (1882-1930) Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Leni Riefenstahl, Ida Lupino and Mai Zet- was displayed at the Long Beach branch of Modern Art, and the County and Munici­ terling. In the Museum’s rental gallery, a California State University. pal Museums in Los Angeles. Women five-artist show surveyed West Coast wo­ A six-artist show at the University of artists, meanwhile, were in exhibition eve­ men’s photography. With Imogen Cun­ Judaism had no focus, save for the women’s rywhere. ningham’s work as a core, the exhibit also common religion, and ranged from illusory The foci for the female emphasis were the included Judy Dater, Lou Brown DiGiulio, abstract painting to stylized figurative feminist panels and related Women’s Cau­ Kay Shuper, and Ilene Segalove. The sculpture; included were Ginette Mizrahi, cus activities held in and around the latter’s collaborative work with Lowell Kady Lou-Hoffman, Sheila Pinkel, Neomi College Art Association convention. Prime Darling, her erstwhile partner in the Holly­ Feldman, Geraldyn Bergman and Charna among these, of course, was the historical wood Anthropology documentation pro­ Rickey. The Mt. St. Mary show looked at survey, Women Artists: 1550-195U, at ject, was at the Long Beach Museum. “Attitudes towards Space: Environmental the Los Angeles County Museum. The There, photographs, videotapes and a vast Art,” and included Jo Hanson, Ree Mor­ show’s organizers, Ann Sutherland Harris array of historical documentation and arti­ ton, Ilene Segalove, Joyce Cutler Shaw, and Linda Nochlin, were the subjects of facts traced the individual and collective Nancy Youdelman and Connie Zehr. The much deserved lionization. Beyond this, histories of the members of “Cauliflower group became a baker’s half-dozen with the women’s art was everywhere to be seen. A Alley,” the informal association of boxers- inclusion of a performance by Rachael calendar printed by the Los Angeles Insti­ turned-movie actors (they tend to play Rosenthal. Hanson’s Crab Orchard Ceme­ tute of Contemporary Art, listing all muse­ heavies). tery reconstructed the Ohio graveyard um and gallery exhibits by women during Other museum shows of women were the where many of the artist’s ancestors are the 1976-77 season listed over 60 L.A.-area Downey Museum’s “Beyond the Garden buried. Ree Morton presented documenta­ shows during January and February alone. Wall,” an exhibit tracing “the relationship tions of the expansive pieces she had While the activity was rife downstate, of women and infants” as portrayed by realized at Artpark and aboard an old ship San Francisco and environs gave women both women and men (with the former docked at the South Street Seaport in New their due as well. A show of four women gender more widely represented); “Fantasy York the previous summer. Ilene Sega- photographers working in color, at the San Clothes/Fantasy Costumes” by four wo­ love’s autobiographical musings and re­ Francisco Art Institute, increased my opti­ men at the Arco Center; an invitational tracings took the form of photographs of mism both as to the accomplishments of crafts survey including 31 California wo­ doors, doors from significant houses in her women photographers and to the possibili­ men at the Craft and Folk Art Museum; the life, hanging before a chair “wearing” her ties of color in the medium. Janet Fries, billowing fiberglass and cloth wall con­ sweater. Joyce Shaw began her Lady and Reagan Louie, and Rita Mandelman all structions of Merle Temkin, at the Newport the Bird Odyssey here in a wire-caged brought individual, even idiosyncratic out­ Harbor Museum; and a show, presumably space, Youdelman made a cast ofher body looks to traditional formats, while Jane including women and men, looking at “The and recast herself as Ophelia, buried in a Wattenberg pulled out the stops and Changing Image of Women 1800-1950,” sea of flowers. Zehr’s work was not one of collaged cut-out rhinoceri, classic columns, away off at the Santa Barbara Museum. her sand and light pieces, but a sound cas­ pumpernickel slices, vegetation and vari­ At the heart of the excitement, naturally, sette, presented on a desk, on which ous other images into riotously whimsical was the Woman’s Building, now in its records of that time when, in Zehr’s words, fantasies. These delights, which often over­ second year at its large, bustling space in Alone One Day in My Studio I Heard a flowed onto the wall itself, could make a the industrial area just north of downtown Sound: It was My Own Voice—moaning? wonderful book that would appeal to all L.A. A blockbuster exhibition including crying? ages. works on paper by 155 women from all over Rita Yokoi was the curator of the The other women’s show in the Bay Area the United States was heartening, even “Attitudes towards Space” show. A maker was “Touching All Things,” a compilation thrilling, in its broad scope and consistent of such installations herself, she modestly of work by 35 regional artists at the Civic excellence. The credit should go equally to stayed out of her own show. However, Arts Gallery in Walnut Creek, beyond the participating artists and to the 37 Melinda Wortz included her in the “Fe­ Berkeley. As with any such show, “Touch­ women curators who cooperated in compil­ male Fantasies” exhibit at the University of ing All Things” had its high points and low ing it. Also of remark at the Woman’s California/Irvine, where she stole the show points; happily, the quality of the work was Building was the afternoon of activities that with her absurdly clean tableau, Chuck's never poor. Craft, fantasy and obsessive­ coincided with the first day of the CAA Pet Dinette—a greasy spoon for dogs. Jan ness—visual and subjective—were the convention, an afternoon during which one Lester’s exorbitantly lush bedroom, car­ qualities shared generally by the participat­ could hear Lucy Lippard talk, meet Grand­ peted with real grass and with a huge ing women, qualities characteristic of Bay ma Prisbey (womanhood’s answer to Simon anthropomorphized cat on the bed, also Area art in general. The stylistic range ran Rodia and Clarence Schmidt and the moved into a three-dimensional space, and the gamut, although the emphasis was on creator of Bottle Village, the environmental grabbed attention. The paintings of Jo the pictorial rather than the conceptual. No assemblage in Ventura County), and wit­ Anne Bourgault, Anna Gunter and Elatia single artist stood out in my memory as a ness a galaxy of performances, demonstra­ Koepfli were invariably charming, some­ ‘discovery,’ but I hope I get to see at least tions and leaflettings by established and times haunting, but not often enough well

23 rendered. A reconstruction of Pat Trim­ spontaneous energy and the instant play of faithfully followed the twists and turns of ble’s starkly conceptual photographic se­ color. the originals. The boards were so thin as to quences, mailed out to a hundred or so The work sometimes takes on literal cast virtually no shadow, which made them people, complemented the other women’s form in miniature worlds—■Little Theatre, look like the colored areas of wall-sized flights of fancy. the perfect summerstock storefront, Sing­ paintings. ing, a line of orange and blue clothespin J. Nebraska Gifford’s very large eight- —PeterFrank birds, George, a rather friendly spook. At figure drawing in Caran D’Ache crayon was other times, a more poetic Parsons is in a surprise for those of us acquainted with charge: Memoire, an indirect homage to her abstract, cast latex wall works. Seven Betty Parsons Jung, Carnival Fantasy, a small frenzy of men and one little girl (the artist’s daugh­ zigzags, like a confetti parade. Whim and ter) are seen standing/bathing in a river (Komblee Gallery, January 8-February 3) frolic are present throughout. Magic Door surrounded by a sparse landscape. Most of At 77, Betty Parsons is one of the most has a key forced into the natural hole at the the men, artists and writers, were depicted vigorous artists working in New York. For center of the sculpture. A very small piece with their left arms upraised either waving over 30 years she has been the Betty Parsons of wood hangs from a rusty nail, and or scrubbing their underarms. A statement Gallery, representing the leaders of post- instead of ignoring it, Parsons celebrates by the artist noted similarities between 1945 American art. She has watched styles the survivor by painting a purple circle on artists and cowboys, and the communal and attitudes come and go; but for those 30 its smooth side. river bathing was a cowboy milieu into years, she has been quietly pursuing her Each single painted piece can be appre­ which she inserted the creative persona. own unique vision. About 10 years ago, she ciated, but it is when and how Parsons Bibi Lencek’s “Domestic Scenes” were began picking up stray pieces of lumber combines them that creates sheer magic. paintings of two embracing figures. The that drifted onto the beach in front of her The works have a life of their own (most of semi-nude couple, in affectionate/sexual Long Island studio. The 32 painted wood the titles suggest themselves after the pieces poses on a bed or platform covered with constructions at Kornblee are where all this are completed), but Betty’s special light softly patterned fabrics, was painted in energy came to rest in January. and vitality underline them all. Since 1947, very, very soft, very pale colors that never Betty’s beachfront must have a special Betty Parsons has provided a forum for seemed to have edges. The scenes looked as magnetism. Strange and wonderful shapes America’s art, but it is now time to if they were in the haze of memory or and forms come to rest there, functional recognize her own work. These construc­ dreams, and needed the punctuation of an wood reclaimed by nature. Once chosen, tions have individual character and fresh­ occasional line or dark color. Parsons gives these aged and weathered ness one almost never sees in today’s art Other shows have followed at Artworks, surfaces new life by painting them with world. We must begin to celebrate their which has become an artist-determined bright, fast-drying acrylics. The color com­ original and powerful spirit. showing space following in the steps of binations are crisp and primitive, and I other decentralized, non-gallery sites. think totally unique. —Jill Dunbar These rejuvenated shapes accumulate in —Ellen Lubell her studio, leaning against walls, cluttering table tops, crammed beneath her work­ bench. There they wait. The building of the Three Artists sculpture is another process. Parsons works Shirley Gorelick in the middle of the floor, creating her own (Artworks, March 5-19) Lois Baron, J. jigsaw puzzle, as her own uncanny eye finds Nebraska Gifford and Bibi Lencek shared (SOHO 20, January 8-February 2) Shirley what works. The constructions are bal­ this space, actually the studio of one of the Gorelick’s latest show was dominated by anced, natural, almost logical once you artists turned into a gallery via a grant from powerful images of three sisters set in dense enter the artist’s world. Shapes fit into and the Committee for the Visual Arts. Baron green tapestries of pachysandra and rhodo­ atop one another as if waiting for that showed two painted board cut-outs: one a dendrons. The flabby teenagers who are the particular spur of movement to combine down-filled vest, the other a pair of ski subject of her scrutiny are the products of them. Repeated color stripes dance and boots. The objects were painted in very leisurely, suburban living. They are posed flash against each other, dedicated to strong, realistic colors, and their edges in easy attitudes of abandon, haughty

Betty Parsons, On Wheels, 1976. Painted wood Bibi Lencek, Embrace with Peonies. Oil on canvas, 40x62". construction, 21x15". Photo: Gwyn Metz. 24 directness and unabashed nakedness, star­ portraiture. Frida Kahlo is the subject of a ing straight on at the viewer or off to the group of the silverpoints. She is obviously a Four Artists sides. They are caught in spontaneous, personality Gorelick has studied and relat­ intimate postures: hands on hips, sitting in ed to closely. This comes out most prom­ (Women in the Arts Gallery, March 19— conversation, fixing their hair. They are inently in her monumental painting of April 16) Pat Ralph, Priscilla Press, Anna repeated with variations, sometimes lined Kahlo, Gorelick’s contribution to the Sister Bisso, Valerie Carmel were the four artists up, sometimes cropped off as in candid Chapel. Its multiple symbology, towering whose works were displayed simultaneously photographs. (Gorelick works both from presence and blazing color are sensitive at the Women in the Arts Headquarters. photos and from live models.) The artist interpretations of the spirit of the great Pat Ralph takes a sarcastic swat at Ingres in has a firm control of complex formal Mexican artist Gorelick has chosen as her her series of Bathers, with groups of nudes structure. All the elements are realistically heroine. luxuriating in (shades of modernity!) show­ rendered; the individual leaves and deep — Barbara Cavaliere ers. Her paintings comment on the female shadows of the plants are strongly model­ body as an object for male speculation. In led. The figures are accomplished with one group of women, oblivious to their close attention to the nuances of flesh tones Penny Kaplan audience (or just posed that way), one as they pick up the colors of the outdoor woman whose eye catches our own takes on surroundings, to the wrinkles of fatty limbs (14 Sculptors Gallery, March 12-30) Penny the classic pose of temptress: seductively and to the separate facial expressions of the Kaplan’s exhibit at 14 Sculptors consisted smiling, hand barely covering pubis. In girls. Yet the plethora of greenery which of models, drawings and photos of pieces of another painting, this time of men, a man envelopes the figures holds them on the monumental sculpture she has built or whose glance meets ours crouches in panic. surface in a tense equilibrium. The repe­ proposes to build. It is therefore necessary Ralph captures his awkwardness with a tition of the young women in a variety of to imagine this work on a much larger scale painterly camera’s click. In a series of three poses and states of dress, peering off in than what was shown. self-portraits (Painters) Ralph makes her­ different directions but never at each other Kaplan has found inspiration in ancient self the victim of the voyeur. (at themselves, as it were) arouses heavy monuments. Most successful of her pieces Anna Bisso’s constructions are each psychological associations. They are linked was a circular sculpture based on an composed of a box affixed to a canvas. The together by formal and “family” resem­ ancient temple in Naples. From a circle of boxes contain numerous autobiographical blance, in their physical appearance and columns inside a classical ruin, Kaplan elements including watches, locks, keys mental disposition, but they transmit a develops flat shapes in a circle that form and the letters of her name. Their contents non-commital air—indifferent and even different levels and subdivide the circle in spill over onto the larger painted surface, alienated—from the spectators outside an intriguing manner. This seemed to but the weight of each structure centers their ambiance as well as from each other. really communicate a space to me. It was within the box. The attempted interplay Gorelick’s paintings closely parallel the easy to imagine the possibilities of move­ between box and canvas plus Bisso’s sym­ combination of formal skill and emotional ment through it. bolic references suggest painful self-reali­ intensity which make Degas the master of A large piece that had already been built zations about mortality. such work. Yet his feelings of repugnance seemed less attractive: a step pyramid Looking out from an upper-story win­ toward women is completely missing from unevenly broken down the center that dow, Priscilla Press paints the streets of Gorelick’s depictions and replaced with an lacked spatial excitement. It neither ex­ lower Manhattan. Buildings are built of understanding for her models’ personali­ panded nor contracted itself in space and rectangles, triangles and squares, all solid ties, seen from outside their generation to therefore had a static quality that I think is and stiff, and built plane upon plane like be sure, but brimming with sympathetic inappropriate to a monument. There were children’s blocks. Everything is textureless comprehension for their situation. also models of other pieces. and barren, from washed-out skies to the Gorelick is also highly knowledgeable in Kaplan’s careful attention to these pro­ leaden East River. The city is ghostly, its the technique of silverpoint; there are jects is admirable; she seems to be able to structures like mausoleums. several fine examples in the show. Her materialize her ideas, working them com­ Valerie Carmel derives her colors and handling of line and contour is appropri­ pletely through. forms from nature. Her paintings are ately delicate in this medium, but sure and charged with energy, the result of Carmel’s strong enough to create these gems of — Robert Sievert keen eye for breaking tensions between

Shirley Gorelick, Beth (profile), 1976. Silver­ Penny Kaplan, Agora. Corrugated cardboard, masonite, 16" diameter x I 'A". point, 24x18". vertical and horizontal planes. The brush of the 19th century school of British water­ Eleanor An tin virtually dances around the picture plane, colorists. By using thin paint over a white blazing trails of hot pink or yellow that zig­ ground, Levine achieves a translucent glow zag and curve. Light blue and an earthy red which sparkles with brilliancy of hue. Her (M.L. D Arc, January 11-29) Antin has cool off her palette, making movement fluid technique, fresh approach and de­ moved away from the autobiographical rather than pigment the primary responsi­ lightfully associational subject matter add aspects of her fantasy role-plays. She has bility of drawing. Carmel’s range of image­ up to a happy treat for the eye and for the not completely abandoned the references to ry was limited mainly to simple landscapes; imagination. her real life; the characters in her latest hopefully her visual repertoire will expand, yarn, “The Angel of Mercy,” are all acted — Barbara Cavaliere bringing zest to other facets of life. by, and based to a great extent on the per­ sonalities of various friends of hers. But —Janet Heit Antin has diminished the “Eleanorness” of D ia n a R n rx her main characters, as well as the discur­ sive format of her earlier performances. For Marion Lerner Levine (Green Mountain Gallery January 28— the first time her persona is based on a very February 17) In this collection of paintings, specific, non-fictional character, namely comprised primarily of nudes, Kurz toned Florence Nightingale. For all intents and. (Prince Street Gallery, January 7-26) For down somewhat the extremely painterly, purposes, Antin is Nightingale. “The An­ Marion Lerner Levine, an Egg Carton extremely intense palette she employs for gel of Mercy” tells the Flo Nightingale Tower is the Tower of Pisa; the Madres painting skin (the artist doesn’t usually story, albeit with Antin’s characteristic em­ della terra are found on a can of olive oil; blend in the strong colors, and there is no bellishments. Formally, for the first time the fruits of the garden and the lush, sunny dampening neutral color). The colors were Antin has created the separation between landscapes of the European countryside subdued to conform with the demands of audience and stage that typifies traditional come to life on the labels of products her latest concern, a study of light and theater. To move completely into tradition­ imported for the American consumer’s shade on the bodies of her models. Her al drama, however, would be to betray her kitchen. She makes special treasures out of nudes recline in chairs and lounge on beds, forms and subjective intentions. Instead, these items which are usually relegated to painted in very warm hues with lots of red Antin, who has studied acting on a profes­ the garbage heap and finds life and vibrant and green. The artist’s efforts in pursuing sional level, performed her multi-character color in the most taken-for-granted objects the nuances of light and shadow were piece as a near-solo; almost every other of her own experience. Levine piles up, rewarded with colors that subtly indicated character was a two-dimensional painted repeats, juxtaposes her saved cans and the presence and absence of her natural cut-out (painted by Antin’s students and containers which cross over, tilt and dangle studio light on the bodies of her subjects, fellow teachers at the University of Califor­ precariously across the picture plane like without looking grayed or forced. The nia at San Diego). Two young men realized Cezanne’s apples. There often appear little volumetric effect is most evident when the other “live” roles; compared to Antin’s bits of nature itself—a sprig of morning colors are seen in values. Two of her most own heroic rendition, stretching across glories, a lone rose resting in a vase or a recent paintings Couple Near Window something like 10 scenes, the men’s roles whole bouquet filling a jar—intermingled (1976) and Model in Red Armchair (1977) were minor (though they did get some good with a Red Rose tea box or a packet of were the best in capturing the volume of the lines and scenes). Antin otherwise held phlox seeds to remind one of her perceptive bodies depicted and the light falling on center stage consistently, speaking the lines play of the natural and the mass-produced. them. Kurz’s Self-Portrait (1975) was pos­ and going through the motions for every Levine has the English love for the Italian- sibly the best painting of the show. Crisp one of the cut-out figures, like a youngster ate, for their exotic customs, foods and drawing, a sparing, more controlled use of playing with dolls. The cut-outs are a lot colorful peasant aura. Their women fasci­ color, and good compositional choices bigger than dolls, but they are smaller than nate her; images of St. Theresa, the Mona combined to make this small work stand life size (a way, she freely admits, to accom­ Lisa and the Vergine are all there on the out. modate them to her own short stature). The labels. They are manufactured commodi­ gallery exhibit consisted of the cut-outs and ties, art, real women and symbol all in one. —EllenLubell of a great many photographs supposedly She has also inherited the special magic documenting Nightingale and the British

Marion Lerner Levine, Egg Carton Tower, 1976. Diana Kurz, Couple Near Windows, 1976. Oil on canvas, 42x72". Watercolor, 20x15 ". Photo: M. Lerner Levine. 26 :roops in the Crimean War. These photos on, as are the pouches she crochets that Harnett. vere expertly shot and developed by Philip contain eggshells. Marilyn Doller stuffs Kramer maintains her stance as an steinmetz to resemble mid-19th century and ties net and muslin into simple, observer of nature and cares not for laguerreotypes, colortypes, tintypes, et al, evocative shapes. Amy Hamouda combines questions of style; she comes to direct :omplete with blotches. The rather anach- crates of weathered wood with networks of confrontation with visual fact about light •onistic references to the American Civil string embedded in resin to evoke the and its relationship to form in explicit War documents of Mathew Brady and metaphysical sea. And Mary Ann Gillies’ situations. tthers were also deliberate on the parts of macrame-ed sculptures elegantly describe —Robert Sievert \ntin and Steinmetz. Continuing her em­ the painstaking but pleasurable process of phasis on the subjectivity of historical their production. 'antasy, Antin even has gone so far as to —Janet Heit ntroduce an “American war correspond- Marcia Resnick :nt” into the cast of characters; this ;ard-sharking Yank, complete with 10-gal- on hat, is Antin’s husband. Marjorie Kramer (Photo Works, January 22-February 22) Marcia Resnick’s Fabric o f the Night takes —Peter Frank a somewhat sarcastic view of the old (Green Mountain Gallery, April 1-21) “waiting game,” better known as being Marjorie Kramer’s work is highly natural­ stood up. liberons Art istic; her main interest seems to be in com­ Five 40x30” panels and short accom­ municating a sense of nature and its panying narratives present different situa­ (Hansen Galleries, February 5-March 6) complexities. She showed several complete tions involving a woman standing, hands Like female artists shown together because and well worked-out landscapes, a series of on hips, her back to us, her head thrust they’re women, or ceramicists because they portraits, and still lifes. toward the night sky. In each case, the use clay, fiber artists as a group may not Her portraits have a methodical intensity garment she wears—always black—is re­ have much beside their medium in com­ that is built out of a diligent approach to produced in detail on the upper half of the mon. her work. She seems to slowly build her panel, constituting the “sky.” All told, she Frances Dezzany shows large, layered, images, taking her time and finding each sports a party dress, silk gown, fur coat, crocheted forms decorated with feathers detail. The color seems very literal and has leather jacket and satin robe. Resnick and seashells, alluding to tribal masks. a naturalistic appearance. offers proof by hanging identical garments Wendy Ward Ehlers comments on the Her landscapes are very ambitious. In on a black coatstand in the darkened room. Bloomingdale’s society by including one of Autumn, Lowell, Vermont, the work is Two chairs in the room invite anyone to their clothing labels with what looks like clearly divided into distance, middle- relax and perhaps even try on the clothing lint from her clothes dryer into a plexiglass ground and foreground. Each section is (identifying as the character of her choice), frame. She also shows feathers ordered in presented with clarity and precision and while Lou Reed drones Waiting for My rows on fruit-packing crates. Mary Drit- her color and exact rendering enable to the Man on tape in the background. schel solves the problem of what to do with picture to project the image of a Vermont The melodramatic narrative beneath old stockings—stuff and tie them in bul­ field in its autumnal glory. Trout Pool, each panel established each character in bous shapes and arrange them in pleasing largest picture in the show, contrasts a dark her situation, ranging from the innocent patterns. Although these people are expert placid pool against the freshness of the schoolgirl waiting to be taken to the prom in their chosen craft, their work is chic and forest green. to the vamp anticipating a night of S/M slick. Autumn Still Life, a picture filled with sex. We find that while their circumstances On the other hand, there is something squash and dried leaves has a distinctly differ, each ends up staring into the night, deliciously evil in Diane Gabriel’s stitched American quality. This picture seems to anxiously expecting her man. and stuffed angels and paunchy black ball radiate a golden light, while the delicate Resnick’s night embraces mystery, sol­ with digital protrusions. Beverly Stram’s rendering of the dried leaves on the wall ace, sexuality, hope. Its “textures” are the fiber birds’ nests are delicate models of the recalls the high degree of realism found in varying ways in which darkness serves these real life-support systems they are modeled works by the early American artist William needs.

Beverly Stram. untitled, 1976-77. M ixed media. Marjorie Kramer, Autumn Still Life (The Seasons), 1976. Oil on canvas. Photo: eeva-inkeri.

27 Blackness and night have long been continuum within the structure, the nega­ have their own eclat, but Johnson’s hand­ associated with the unknown—and the tive intervals acting with the three-part writing is too hurried, and her language too archetypal feminine; by now they are boards to infer a sweeping arabesque verbose. Jean Feinberg and Ann Christo­ cliches. There balances a feeling of parody motion only partially present in the incised pher work on that intimate scale of gewgaw between these photos, resembling color arcs, enhancing the lyrical flow felt also in craziness that is cropping up all over New stills from grade-B movies, and a sense of the scattered shiny marbles. Involved are York. Feinberg’s paintings and paint- awe created by placing them in the context three layers of superimposed and variegat­ encrusted wall constructions, none as long of nighttime. Juxtaposing humor and sus­ ed elements which, when added together, as a foot, are endearingly gritty and forth­ pense didn’t lead to any higher synthesis, rise only a little over an inch from the right. Christopher’s deliberately awkward just confusion. bottom layer (the floor), while spanning little paintings, evoking a child’s figura­ broad areas of the captured surface. The tion , sometimes overdo the cuteness of their —Janet Heit compositions of these works do not imply own clumsiness. Her use of gold leaf is the limitless extension beyond the borders; the consistently successful touch of planned patterns rather transmit a sense of closure, gaucherie. Ceeile Abish both by the sudden stoppage of the mar­ —PeterFrank ble/border and by the inclination to as­ (Alessandro Gallery, Jan. 15-Feb. 8) Cecile sume a completion of the circular motions Abish makes her sculpture by taking pos­ of the cut-out arcs. Abish achieves rich and session of a borrowed space—recontextu- intricate variations on her theme, success­ F ra n c ia alizing it, establishing a new order, stimu­ fully locating new possibilities through lating a situation of interchange with the what is essentially a reductive mode. surrounding space through the imposition (Ward-Nasse Gallery, January 29—Feb­ of her will. She uses ordinary, manufac­ — Barbara Cavaliere ruary 17) Contrasting linear elements of tured materials, particle boards and mar­ dark intense colors against fields of related bles, and with these simple components lighter hues, Francia created the effect of achieves complex sets of relationships. great spatial differences between the two. Thousands of glass marbles in a variety of Four Artists The lines are irregular, some gently curv­ colors are spread across the floor, lending ing, others crinkled; the compositions an expansive breadth to the work, giving it (A.I.R. Gallery, January 8-February 2) varied greatly in density. One saw aerial a quality of fluid mobility, a glow of trans- Four younger women were invited to show and distant views of mountainous land­ lucence, and serving also to delineate the their hitherto unexposed work by A.I.R. scapes, crisp ridges, deep valleys. Most of edges of the piece. At intervals, Abish member Anne Healy. The most exciting the compositions combined these impres­ “floats” four-foot square boards on the single work in the show was Joan Snitzer’s sions with a feeling of biomorphic forms, marbles; in the latest work, each board is corner installation of paper adhered direct­ and various curves and bends and creases cut through by two quarter-circle arcs, one ly to the wall, string connecting wall and became interpretations of parts of the foot apart, which create three sections floor and also suspended slightly before the body, as if fleeting impressions stored in within the square which, however, is left wall, and pencil markings, all formulating memory were brought out, combined and intact. Negative/positive tensions enter in a gracefully syncopated geometry in black translated into this format. Out of the by the incorporation of the floor itself as and white. Snitzer thus demonstrated that mountains, one begins to see humanized part of the structure—in the spaces show­ architecture is indeed frozen music. Snitz­ forms ;conversely, one also begins to per­ ing through between the marbles and in the er’s collage-drawings relate to her installa­ ceive these as interior impressions, that the clearings formed by tracing the outlines of tion the way preliminary floor plans relate creases, etc. are the interpretation of inte­ the square boards. The workings of the to a finished building. Mary Frisbee John­ rior recesses. Many of the compositions unmeasurable element (the marbles) with son’s proposals for sculptural intrusions displayed a sophisticated color sense; just the measured element (the particle boards and extrusions in especially wild land­ enough of just the right colors. and the clearings) give further dimension to scapes-—mostly in Montana— are provoca­ the amalgam of correlates. The layout of tive ideas. The large drawings and photo­ —Ellen Lub ell the boards and the clearings suggests a graphs on paper that embody the proposals

Cecile Abish, Near Where I live, 1976. Particle board, marbles, 288x192" Francia, Organic Fantasy. Oil on canvas, 38x48”.

28 ished look as well as the ashen tones and ir­ collectively work to create an expansive en­ Wary F ra n k regularities of the clay segments enrich vironment of the artist’s creation. Green­ Frank in her primitivizing tendencies. berg’s use of color completes this tendency. Frank’s imagery is not all purely passive; In this exhibition, color means light. (Zabriskie Gallery, February 15-March 19) many of the heads peel open to reveal a Though the canvases are very flat, the color Born in London in 1933, Mary Frank has tougher inner personality inside. In dealing generates an expanding atmosphere that been showing her art for about 19 years. with basic materials and subject matter, reaches out to bathe the observer in warm Since 1970 she has concentrated her efforts Frank has accomplished a body of work sensual light. The distinctive light of each in the ceramic medium, and, in 1975, she with that rare combination of simplicity canvas gives the show its emotional sub­ made a move to larger, more ambitious and strength, spontaneity and deep person­ stance; from the variegated summer mo­ pieces. Her latest show revealed no sur­ al emotion, which often eludes those who ments come a sense of wholeness, intimacy prises; it was a continuation and deeper strive for sophistication. clarity, happiness. penetration into her searching, private mythological theme of the figure, primarily — Barbara Cavaliere — Carla Sanders the nude female figure, most often por­ trayed reclining in a state of dreamlike ecstasy. The horizontal figures are tragic images, melancholic and vulnerable, im­ Gloria Greenberg Daphne Mumford pacted with a secretive, primordial passion bidden in every woman, the stuff of her (55Mercer, January 29-February 16) After (Landmark Gallery, March 12-31) Mum­ most intimate reveries and fears. They the sludge of Mercer Street, Gloria Green­ ford showed primarily figurative paintings, seem incarcerated in the earth, part of its berg’s show at 55 Mercer was spacious light in which the figures were mostly young fiber, crumbling, eroding in a state of and color. The landscape abstractions, col­ women; in several instances, they were her partial decomposition. They are assem­ lectively titled “Evaluations,” were in­ daughters. While some of the depicted blages of fragments, resembling the broken spired by her summer vacation on Monhe- situations are real, i.e. a dance studio with remains of some ancient civilization found gan Island, Maine. Without exception, the students at rest, or two reclining figures in by archeologists in an effort to recreate paintings consisted of three rectilinear lakeside landscape, the others are unreal. something alien, far removed from the shapes suggesting earth, sky and sea, It is in these that the execution varies most, world of contemporary experience. The vertically arranged and traversed by quick, but in which there is most interest. overriding feeling is that of a hushed calm, vitalizing brushstrokes. This simple com­ In one painting, a triptych entitled The but the flaying of some parts evokes an positional structure, which permits great Passengers (1975), two women recline on a energy, signs of a struggle for freedom of variety within its limits, subordinates itself bench the length of the canvases, while a movement. There is a blend of the literal to the color, which ranges from murky third sits upright in the smallest central and the abstract; some parts are realistical­ storm to blazing noon. Material is also panel. The bench floats in the background, ly depicted while others are tubular and minimalized—the paint is thinly applied in a starry night sky. The upright figure is distorted. Sometimes Frank imprints plant broad flat areas, designating great impor­ draped with a fabric that mimics the sky in life, the delicate, tropical fern, for instance, tance to the clean edges of the shapes. lighter blue, and glows with a halo effect into the figure’s head or body, or juxtaposes Greenberg’s repertoire of brushstrokes dis­ around her head, creating a dreamy, animal and human heads in one piece, turbs the surface and interrupts the edges relaxed ambience for the well-painted bringing the image into a closer union with with enough variety to prevent stagnation. composition. In Odalisque, the model is nature, with the basal emotions which are They are perhaps reminiscent of the differ­ posed after the figure in the Ingres painting the earth’s life nourishment. Her use of ent types of creative energy generated by of that name. Artist and model discovered stoneware as medium fuses nicely with the natural forces. that the pose is almost impossible to attain, mood and nature of the theme; clay fired in The show features 17 28x22” canvases, and had to be painted part by part to spare a kiln is an ancient, fundamental material; much smaller than Greenberg’s previous the model undue pain. In back of the the women of the earliest civilizations work. What at first appears to be a case in figure, within a painted frame, is a deep fashioned it into containers and artifacts. favor of small paintings is actually am­ space, like a long room, at the end of which The rough, crusty edges and general unfin­ bivalent to the issue of scale. The paintings the sky and clouds could be seen through an

Mary Frank, Woman with Wing Arms, 1975. Stoneware, 27Vix8x44". Daphne Mumford, Odalisque. 1976. Oil on canvas, 50x60". Photo: Photo: John A. Ferrari. Cora Duback. 29 open arch. The fabrics surrounding the angular Tunnels. They reveal a Vermeer- stance seems close to that of conceptual art. Odalisque were handled deftly, as was the like, pale, grayish flesh color in the “touch­ She thought of her show as an environment rendering of the hands and figures shown able” skin parts and a bluish shade in the and had an environmental piece at the as drawing studies in the rear gallery space. background. Her latest, often smaller, end of the gallery, after her other artworks. paintings tend toward a brighter color It consisted of a throne, a velvet cape and —Ellen Lubell scheme, especially in the pink flesh tones. some other queenly things, slightly tar­ Though the torsos and parts of arms and nished. legs are the subjects as a whole, Semmel She also had her “actual Superwoman Joan Sentinel emphasizes a hand or a foot. She character­ costume” tacked to the wall, the one she izes those features as sensitive portraits, as wore for her Self-portrait as Superwoman clearly recognizable as faces. drawing, executed for her painting for the (Lemer-Heller Gallery, March 5-31) Eight For the first time since the calligraphic Sister Chapel; it had a terrific striding- paintings and seven drawings showed nine pen drawings of her abstract days, Semmel ahead feel to it. months of Joan Semmel’s work on female is drawing again. In some of the drawings Sharon Wybrants’ last show seemed to nude imagery. The gallery space seemed (those I like best) she tries to imitate the me to be anti-elegance, and it interested me transformed into a shrine honoring the smoothness of the paintings as if they were that this one presented a dignified almost female nude in all its sincerity and sensual­ pastels. In others she exploits more of the elegant image of woman, without losing ity. The calm atmosphere of the gallery bluntness and colorfulness of oil crayons. any of her sense of confrontation. supported the sensitivity radiating from the So far, Semmel’s oil paintings have been pictures. shown only on this continent and in Spain. —Marjorie Kramer Semmel’s work has a lyric quality and It is time for them to be seen in Europe. shows a positive attitude toward the female body, a very personal view of the female —Rosa Lindenburg nude, a liberated view without stereotyped Cathey Killian imagery. It seems to be a statement of the artist’s feminism and an appraisal of the women’s movement in general. Sharon Wybrants (Douglass College Library, March 12-31) In all her pieces, the body is seen in a re­ Billian maintains a continuing exploration clining position from beyond the head, in of natural formations, and of primitive the way one looks down on one’s own body. (SOHO 20 Gallery, February 5—March 2) cultures’ incursions into these. The latter For some time now, Semmel has been Wybrants showed a series of 12 self-por­ phenomena, specifically the petroglyphs ol working from photographs she took of traits done while her marriage was break­ western American Indians, Billian evokes herself. She uses them in her compositions ing up. During the Separation, at the by the simple, familiar method of graphite as a point of departure. In this show, for the beginning of the series, shows her angry rubbings on paper. More successful are the first time, she uses xerox prints from color and alert, like a wild animal looking for large canvas works, unstretched, which slides. possible dangers. Something of the rolling hang vertically and cascade from wall tc Although her subject matter is figura­ eyes of a Durer is there, but you don’t really floor. These, too, are rubbings, rendered in tive, Semmel’s compositions are quite notice the style, it’s the expression that graphite, soil (the use of which links the abstract, indicative of her long commit­ dominates your reaction. There is another work materially to its subject matter), and ment as an abstractionist. A pattern of lines interesting expression in a work entitled various kinds of pigment. Billian takes rolls and surfaces, departing from a foot or hand Getting Hard. That image looked very New of canvas to various rocky sites—an out­ in or off the center, stretches to the corners York City woman to me, the way other cropping near the Delaware River, foi of the canvas. The colors are evenly applied people look when you walk down the street. instance, or a promontory into the ocean in within the sharp contours which divide the It didn’t seem like a self-portrait. I thought the Canadian Maritimes—and builds up surfaces. that the idea of studying mood changes and impressions which are in effect excerpts The lyric quality of her work is aided by expressions while going through a divorce from the rock surfaces. As these excerpts an exquisite coloring, especially in the was a fertile subject for painting. Although do not focus on a particular form, but onl> bigger oil paintings Centerhand and Tri­ she is a representational artist, Wybrants’ capture the general texture of the stone (its

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Sharon Wybrants, During the Separation (Feb­ Joan Semmel, Triangular Tunnels, 1976. Oil on canvas, 42x98". ruary, 1976). Oil on canvas, 24x18". Photo: Suzanne Kaufman. 30 appearance modified by Billian’s use of against the photo of Mom. were clear, mirrored on both sides, and varied pigmentation), a broad sense of There is a tension of opposites in her mirrored on one side while black on the substance, unbound by linear considera­ work, in which emphatic meaning seems to other. The effect was thus spatial coheren­ tions, is conveyed. Leaving the canvas be struggling with a more fantastic content. cy, spatial disjunction, and spatial inter­ expanses unstretched adds to this. In three The work sometimes suffers and sometimes ruption, all effected through the non-inter- short films Billian both documented her is strengthened by this. ferent, reflective, and absorptive qualities activities and extended her concern for As painting the work is strong. There is of the glass with regard to light. natural texture and geophysical site into clarity in the definition of forms and space the fourth dimension. that implies artistic maturity. While a few —PeterFrank pieces seem to be overfinished, as a rule the —PeterFrank work had a freshness and vitality.

—Robert Sievert Diane Arbus O ra L erm an (Helios Gallery, February 8-April 2) The content of this show of the late Diane (Prince Street Gallery, March 11-30) Ora Elyn Zimmerman Arbus’ work was very familiar, as most of Lerman’s work is interesting in so far as it the photographs had been seen in previous incorporates both painting and image exhibitions. Only some early photographs, making. Her images are surreal and her (Broxton Gallery, Los Angeles, January 15- taken on Coney Island and not as extreme painting is sometimes magical and often February 12; P. S. 1, March 25-A pril 24) as her later work, added to this viewer’s tricky. Trompe l’oeil borders combine Zimmerman manipulates light and space, knowledge of her oeuvre. op-art graphics with art deco iridescence, and the interaction between the two, so that It is. hard to comment on Arbus’ work and phrases of literary meaning are related precise definitions of, and between the now, as so much has already been said to the picture within. two, become obscured—but not so about it. Her work always made me very The subject matter is a series of toys and completely that she traps us into dizzyingly uncomfortable...its searing intensity and still life objects which are place together to illusionistic halls-of-mirrors. In her Los brutal view of humanity is hard to take. It is form a story. One picture, Parades Should Angeles show Zimmerman fabricated two true that she was a master of her craft. No Not End is a collection of toys marching rows of glass panels, one clear and running photo could be clearer or more powerful. across the picture while the title is etched diagonally into one corner of the naturally- The strength of her images is constantly into the decorative border. The message is lit gallery, and the other mirrored and unnerving. There is something truly shock­ one of eternal delight and the objects help running against the wall (so that the two ing in her photographs of retarded children to maintain its spirit. rows met in the corner). Single lines on each and adults at Willowbrook in Halloween Trained As A Seamstress Mom Couldn’t of the panels combined in the eye to create costumes. These pictures were among her Embroider Her Dreams seems to be mak­ two continuous, and not entirely dissonant, last and it is hard to imagine staying in the ing a comment on her mother’s situation. lines. When the eye was properly aligned same room with these distressing images Around a photo of Mom are arranged with this multipartite structure the lines for more than five minutes, let alone jewelry and trinkets that further the nostal­ were seen as re-emphasizing the edge developing and printing them. gia and memories. There is a heaviness to between the wall and the floor of the gallery Was it difficult for Arbus? Her fascina­ this picture that has to do with distant as reflected in the mirrored panels. The tion/compulsion with drag queens and Sunday afternoons in the Bronx; maybe it’s subtler P.S. 1 installation, erected in the overly made-up women seems to peak in Mom’s hat. Skeins of embroidery thread, large and naturally-lit auditorium, posed her picture of a woman in a middle class face masks and several dolls lying on their even more directly phenomenological ques­ living room complete with drapes and sides seem to be projecting a meaning but tions about the space and the material. upholstery with a monkey on her lap in this is a dream space—the dolls are Three panels were set up, parallel to the baby clothes. The ultimate put on, the tumbling out toward us as romanticism and windowed walls but determining a diagonal ultimate distraught, disastrous life. fantasy fight for domination of the picture between them. Progressively, the panels Arbus was unrelenting in her crusade

31 against a society that doted on beauty and Dionysus). Wesselman, Warhol, Indiana elbows. The woman’s position was very hid away its freaks and abnormalities. She and Rivers were among the other artists unrestrained and one had the feeling of was there bringing them to the forefront mimicked? ridiculed? commended? It was Ronnie gazing and drinking in what she with her penetrating photographs; there is hard to discern just what the artist’s intent saw. a touch of the martyr in her work, as her was, and why pay more homage to these The paintings were alive with a sense of quest was somewhat impossible— asking us most revered male artists? A few of the discovery. Each nose or eye or gesture was all to accept aberrations as a part of life and works seemed more personal and honest, not stereotyped or assumed, but found art. I admire her artistic spirit but can only such as Dallas Collector, Herman Somberg anew. In a quiet way I thought Ronnie take her work a little at a time. and Assemblage for Cage. Judge uses Carson’s show was one of the most beauti­ modeling paste for the basic building up of ful of the season. —Robert Sievert her surfaces, and then uses lots of rubbing, rolling and scumbling, and little brushing, —Marjorie Kramer but her goals remain mysteries.

Suzanne Kaufman/ —EllenLubell Alexis Smith Mary Frances Judge (Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Los Angeles, (Hansen Galleries, March 8-April 3) No Ronnie Carson January 21-March 5; Holly Solomon Gal­ superstars of the art world were captured in lery, March 26-April 16) Smith does not the black and white photos comprising illustrate literary narratives, she opens Kaufman’s “New York Artists Photo­ (First Street Gallery, March 11-30) Ronnie them out. She takes stories by Borges, or graphed.” Rather, the SoHo scene, and Carson paints only women. Her attitude from the 1001 Arabian Nights—fabulistic more private moments of art-being were toward the women, mostly hired models and often fabulous tales—and edits them shown. A number of the photos were of who become friends, is gentle and nostal­ into several choice paragraphs. These she artists hanging and preparing a couple of gic. There is something romantic and 19th types onto sheets of colored paper. Above shows at the SoHo 20 Gallery; one sees the century about these images of women who the condensations Smith collages various final touches for the HERA exchange show, are all dressed in graceful clothes. I asked items either obviously, or better yet, ob­ and Rachel Rolon de Clet’s last minute myself why she would paint only women liquely pertinent to the passage below. preparations for her show: painting, tap­ and it seemed that there was an extension of These devices have their own magic, in ing, looking, wondering. Of the eight in the self-portrait idea. There is also some­ their simplicity and sometimes startlingly this group, the most telling was a long shot thing very conversational about the atti­ apt relationship to the narrations they of the artist touching up a work, alone, with tudes in the pictures. She is involved in accompany. Borges’ story about the Alpha, the rest of the show hung and ready around doing strong paintings of delicate and the point in space from which one can see her. Other scenes captured by Kaufman’s gentle feelings, a rather special idea to all other points, is augmented with, among camera were of SoHo street performances, accomplish. There is a sense of careful other things, single glass-head pins repre­ various well-known SoHo faces, and art craftsmanship in each of these gemlike senting points and a circular card, bearing people at openings, parties, performances. canvases. Each one seemed to have a punch pins pointing inward, as the Alpha. In her The photographer captures her personages of some perception; in front of one that single-sheet works, like the single and in characteristic moments, producing pic­ couldn’t have been more than five by seven multiple postcard collages, Smith does not tures better than posed portraits. inches, I found myself thinking how won­ always exploit the “dumbness” of her Judge’s “Great American Artists Series” derfully that red hair went in and out of the method so deftly. Sometimes, however, was an extensive array of paintings, sculp­ light. these simple pieces are her best because of ture and constructions, each a take off from Two other prominent impressions from their very “dumbness” ; that is, their rudi­ a noted male artist’s work. Jim Dine, for her show are a still life of a shell that had a mentary, 1 + 1 cleverness which uncannily example, was represented by two bathrobe nice sense of touch, as if the brush caressed provokes tiny little epiphanies. works, onto which the artist adhered furry the object, and a drawing of a woman with fabrics and plastic plant leaves (Apollo & her head thrown back leaning on her —PeterFrank

Suzanne Kaufman, untitled photograph. Alexis Smith. He Who Thinks, Drinks from the Cup of Fortune. 197b. Paper cups, press-type in plexi box. 7xfi3Ax5'A'\ Photo: Harry Shunk. 32 painted only that for two shows now. First, Rosalind Shaffer she loved the book, La Sombra del Caudillo Auiicv Ungar (roughly The Shadow of the Leader) by Martin Luis Guzman, because “the char­ (SOHO 20 Gallery, March 5-30) In her acterizations were so true and it had good (Sixth Estate Gallery, November 5-25) recent show Shaffer displayed six large visual descriptions.” She identified with Working in several formats, including cut-out figures of New York City charac­ the hero, a political young idealist who has small (foot-square) paintings, larger paint- ters, the types we see everyday. Two to decide what to do in a corrupt situation. ing-constructions and drawings, Ungar prostitutes, a subway lady with shopping She like the exotic distance that the 1920s coordinates often focal semi-abstract im­ bags, a motorcycle dude, an elegant cafe Mexican Revolution setting gave the agery with a painterly, even abstract ex­ drinker and a housewife all make up this scenes. She likes the fact that the setting’s pressionist, touch. Ungar sometimes loses diorama of city life. not New York City. She prefers metaphori­ control of this touch, letting it obscure the The figures are painted on large flat cal meaning to everyday life. clarity and forthrightness of her odd, pro­ pieces of wood about six feet high. The Most of the paintings are large multiple vocative pictures. When she is technically drawing is in a style that rests between figure paintings done from imagination. secure, Ungar evokes her emblematic im­ comic book rendering and folk art sincer­ They are some of the most ambitious work I ages with almost Pop humor and purely ity. The shopping bag lady could easily be know. The figures’ actions are not arbitrary non-objective strength. Her best made, transported to a book of old German as in paintings by Delacroix, where the most attractive and cleverest pieces are her fairytales without any stylistic adjustment. people wiggle wonderfully but you don’t wall constructions, notably those com­ The hookers dressed in hot pants and know what they’re doing. Susan’s people prised of separate painted panels lined by halters seem to disport themselves theatri­ are all busy spilling things on the floor or in suggestive sculptural devices (rounded cally, emphasizing their availability. The each other’s faces during an argument, or sticks, chains sewn out of canvas). Not as figures are placed in or around scenery, as passionately embracing in the back seat of consistently powerful, but charming and the cafe lady who is seen inside a window in a 1920s Cadillac. Smoking and drinking, convincing in the seriality of their intimate a brick wall, flashing her polished nails. definitely not frozen or alienated, they scale and their contained energy, are Shaffer’s works seems somewhere be­ interact like hell. Violence, love and death Ungar’s small canvases. tween funk art and painting. As funk art conversations, and arguments are her sub­ this work lacks that whacky dizziness that jects. Her figures are even busy in the — Peter Frank generally characterizes the genre. The distant rooms down hallways. There might painting on the figures is on a professional be an open door onto the night and level but the backgrounds have a mechani­ someone coming into he bar. cal dryness; without the figures they would Technically, she starts with a scene from hold little interest. Taken as itself, it is the book that she wants to paint. She does comic art that seems not quite outrageous lots of small drawings and when she starts enough. the painting she uses acrylic paint so she can make big changes, such as “change a —Robert Sievert black shirt to yellow or move it over three feet.” She also likes the transparencies of acrylic paint. I think it is worth noting that Susan Susan Daykin Daykin paints men in uniforms almost exclusively. She also showed some rather thrilling small landscapes done in Colom­ (Bowery Gallery, January 28-February 16) bia, S.A. from life with startling clouds, Susan Daykin paints strong, exuberant cloud shadows, black horses and white paintings. She has had my admiration for a Spanish buildings. number of years. Curiously, she actually paints scenes from a book and she has Nancy Ungar, Parc de Laurentides. Oil on —Marjorie Kramer canvas, 12x12".

Rosalind Shaffer. Street-Wise, 1975-77. Birch plywood, oil paint, fabric. Susan Daykin. Youth and Power, 1976. Acrylic on canvas. 57x60". Photo: Jacob Burckhardt. 33 imports— tion and were first shown at the Douglass Barbara Phillips Perle is the wife of a College Library under the auspices of member of the music department faculty. Queens College director Lynn Miller. It then traveled to Most of the women not affiliated with the Vassar College, the California Institute of school heard about the gallery and Rich­ Library Program the Arts and the University of California at mond through women artist friends; May — Why Women Show Here Frequently— San Jose where it was part of a large Stevens has been outstanding in this re­ exhibition called “Word Works.” Rich­ gard. During the past four years there have mond displayed it at the Queens Library in All of these factors suggest a number of been a significant number of exhibitions by the fall of 1974, largely on the request of points which have particular relevance in a women artists at Queens College’s Paul Joyce Kozloff and May Stevens. wider context. It is most interesting to note Klapper Library, where Professor Neal The list of shows goes on and on to that, although there is a parallel between Richmond, head of the art library and exemplify the breadth and quality which the women’s shows at Queens and those curator of the college art collection, is in characterized women’s showings at which have taken place at Douglass College charge of the gallery spaces. During this Queens. But the main purposes here are Library (see Womanart, Winter/Spring time more than 25 women have shown here; not those of critical evaluation. It is hoped 1977), the Queens shows have not been they have, in fact, been present in unbro­ that, by examining who these women are specifically planned to be of women as have ken sequence for the past year. and how and why they have come to exhibit those at Douglass under Lynn Miller. Even a simple list demonstrates the wide at the Queens Library of all places, the These shows happened due to the combina­ variety of styles and media which these wider significance of this phenomenon will tion of Neal Richmond’s perceptive alert­ exhibitions have encompassed.(1) The be established. Paul Klapper Gallery is an ness and openness to current art and the work ranges from realist drawings and out-of-the-way place, rarely, probably nev­ enthusiastic desire of so many women paintings to surreal relief sculptures, from er traversed by New York artists or critics. artists to show their work in a small and not abstract works on paper and canvas to There is scant hope of attracting large very prominent place, in anything but the portraits and documentary photographs. audiences and less of receiving any press. most ideal location. There is much to be On view at this writing is a sample of the The space is a difficult one; it consists of gained by recognizing the contribution of well known portraiture of Alice Neel (rang­ four locations for display of art located at Richmond and the twenty-odd women ing from early works to two of her latest points around the library. The main loca­ artists involved here. Together, working paintings). Just previous to this exhibition tion consists of a rather small room of with an unbeatable blend of ability, energy Sylvia Sleigh showed a large group of display cases and four additional cases just and willpower, they have demonstrated the delicate, translucent watercolors of stones, outside of it; this is found on the second numbers of serious working women artists shells and flowers, taking the opportunity floor (away from the main library traffic) at around and have served as models which to reveal a little known aspect of her work. the entrance to the art library. It is not an reinforce the viability of the small college All last summer the accomplished pencil environment that is easy to work with. art gallery by pointing out what can be done drawings of May Stevens, including deeply Interestingly enough, one of the artists, within the limitations of funds and space. emotional images and poems about her Julie Lomoe, stated in her catalog that it With his tiny budget, Richmond has mother, took over the scene. In October, had a definite effect on her work, noting: accumulated an enviable list of fine shows Nancy Spero arrived with examples of her “My first view of the space.. .had a powerful and has even managed to produce bro­ strong and haunting collage; she was somewhat intimidating effect on me. The chures as informative records of their followed by Marian Oken’s white on white dimly lit room, the glass-enclosed cases, existence. The galleries at Queens Library paper reliefs so different in approach and evoked aquariums...or museums where I are booked up for more than two years in mood. Next came Joyce Kozloff s patterns had studied primitive art, and seemed to advance, and the forthcoming shows give of jewel-like color and intricate design. demand work which, while small in scale, every indication that women will continue There have been a number of photography would be assertive, even iconic in inten­ to show up often at Queens. shows; Sylvia Bergel repeatedly contributes sity.” These setbacks, however, did not interesting shows of her own and sometimes discourage women from showing at 1. The follow ing is a list of most of the exhibitions by women artists during the period under discussion: of her students’ works; twice now, Mary Queens. Many are established artists who Ellen Andrews has shown her ability to have accumulated long lists of credentials Margit Beck-Drawings, May 1-Sept. 29, 1973. Frances Hynes-Drawings, June-Sept, 1973. capture the personalities of her unusual and exhibitions and/or have associations Evelyn Eller-Acrylic Paintings, Sept. 1973. models. Judith Sandoval, a specialist in with New York galleries or co-ops. One Barbara Phillips Perle-Homage to Bosch: Relief Sculptures, Oct. 1-Nov. 3, 1973. Mexican colonial architecture and author exception is Marian Oken whose show Joan Itzkovitz-Paintings on Enamel, Nov. 1973. of a number of articles, exhibited 30 represented a particularly important Judith Sandoval-Colonial Monuments of the State of Zacatecas, Mexico (30 photos), May 1974. outstanding photographs of haciendas, chance for exposure. She recently wrote Mary Ellen Andrews-Pictures of People, Sept. 30- houses, chapels, stables and other remains me: “Being an unaffiliated artist, the Nov. 2, 1974. “ L.D.” : A Photographic Essay on the of this aspect of early American architec­ exhibition I had at Queens College gave me Sculptor Louie Durchanek, Dec. 2-Feb. 1, 1975. “Rip-Off File” (Statements by Women Artists and Art ture. Under the auspices of the Smithso­ an impetus and a goal. I am a former Teachers)-material gathered in 1972 by Maude Boltz, nian Institution, it traveled from Phoenix graduate student at Queens and applied for Loretta Dunkelman, Joyce Kozloff, Joan Snyder, Nancy Spero and May Stevens, members of the Ad to Queens to the Pan American Union a show myself after I graduated. Mr. Hoc Committee of Women Artists, Oct. 1974. Building in Washington to the 1974 State Richmond was sensitive, supportive and Regina Granne-Recent Works: Drawings and Pastels, Fair in Zacatecas, Mexico, the site of the Nov. 4-Dec. 7, 1974. helpful.” The vast majority of the women Julie Lomoe-Recent Works: Collages, Dec. 9-Jan. 18 works themselves. Sandoval’s exhibit is one have been or still are associated with the 1975. of two traveling shows on the list. The college. Rosemarie Beck-Travel Sketches, May-Sept., 1975. Jo-Anne Mazlawski-Jan.-Feb., 1975. second was of a very different purpose and The vast majority of the women have Marjorie Apter-McKevitt-Paintings, Sept. 29-Nov. appeal. The “Rip-Off File” was a specifi­ been or still are associated with the college. 3, 1975. Sylvia Bergel-Photographs, May 19-Sept. 27, 1975. cally feminist show, a collection of state­ They are teachers, such as faculty member (Plus numerous other shows during her 30-year-long ments of grievances by women artists and Helen Schiavo who is chairperson of the art career at Queens College). art teachers throughout the country organ­ department, or participants in the Adult Evelyn Eller-Acrylic Paintings, March 1976. Helen Schiavo-Monoprints, April 3-30, 1976. ized by members of the Ad Hoc Committee Education program like Sylvia Bergel (ac­ MayStevens-Drawingsand Poems, May-Sept., 1976. of Women Artists in 1972. It was originally tive for almost 30 years) and Marjorie (Plus earlier show of B ig Daddy gouaches). Nancy Spero-Collages, Oct. 4-21, 1976. published as a newspaper for the College Apter-McKevitt, in the ACE program such Marian Oken-Handmade Dimensional Paperworks, Art Association meeting of 1973. The 55 as May Stevens and Joyce Kozloff, and in Oct. 25-Nov. 3, 1976. statements were then enlarged for exhibi­ Joyce Kozloff-W orks on Paper, Dec. 20-Feb. 12, the SEEK program such as Eleanor Magid. 1977.

34 Sylvia Sleigh-“Stones and Flowers” (Watercolors), theme for all the panels and discussions elsewhere. Feb. 14-March 12, 1977. that followed. Among other things, they In addition to four general membership Alice Neel-Paintings and Drawings, March 14-April 15, 1977. dealt with “Female Imagery,” “Action, meetings a year, the group meets every Natalie Edgar-Paintings, April 18-30, 1977. Business and the Artist,” “Aesthetics: The Monday for lunch and a get-together, Diana Kurz-Nudes, Watercolors and Drawings, May 2-June 4, 1977. Total Image,” and “Personal Reflections.” changing restaurants each time for variety. Sylvia Bergel-Photos, Summer 1977. Artists Judy Chicago, Faith Ringgold, On Tuesday evenings they meet in a tavern. Carol Heyman-Paintings and Dioramas, Sept. 1977. Eleanor Magid-Drawings and Prints, Oct. 4-30, 1977. Sylvia Sleigh and Marjorie Strider estab­ (New York needs taverns like theirs: taste­ lished several points and offered special ful, intimate, relaxing, and conducive to —Barbara Cavaliere insights. Critic Lucy Lippard was particu­ pleasant socializing.) larly memorable when she addressed her­ As an example of the group’s variety of self to the topic “Female Imagery.” “It activities, some recent events included: Women's Art Symposium would be difficult for anyone here to “Potluck Supper with Lucy Lippard,” contradict the fact that women are different “Gestalt of Critique,” “Monday Munch at —Midwest Activity— from men, and that if women’s art comes Morningtown,” “The Tale that Wagged Six days in a cold, midwestern February, from inside, where all art should come the Dog” (writing), “Steamer with Lynda” from the seventh to the 12th, saw the from, it, too, must be different from men’s (Benglis), “Artist in Process.” unfolding of the Women’s Art Symposium art. Our entire experience in society is Cathy Hillenbrand, a board member and in Terre Haute, Indiana. The Symposium different—social, political and biological.” an attorney, recently worked for and won centered on the contributions of American “Tell Us What You Think” and “Men’s the group tax-free status. Lyla Foggia, women in the contemporary arts. Conduct­ View of the Whole Thing” made up the board member and writer, is working with ed largely in donated facilities at Indiana segments of the symposium specially ar­ local television stations, placing short TV State University and its Turman Art Gal­ ranged to elicit the reactions and responses spots on various events pertaining to the lery, and Terre Haute’s Sheldon Swope Art of the public as the programs and activities group’s activities. Judy Kleinberg handles Gallery, the activities included art exhibi­ actually unfolded. The value of these their monthly newsletter. Other members, tions, a concert, a dance workshop and per­ sessions lay in the fact that the committee like Mary Avery, Anita Fisk and Patty formance, films, video, and symposia on could gauge the effectiveness of what they McCoy, take equally active roles. literature and feminist themes and issues in were attempting as the symposium pro­ The group is interested in positive pro­ contemporary art. gressed rather than in the usual after-the- grams which will bring women artists of the At the first meeting in the spring of 1976, fact evaluations. Northwest region together. They have ex­ the coordinating committee confronted Inevitably, later evaluations did emerge. pressed interest in bringing to Seattle the several realities both about themselves and The 20-member committee and its coordi­ Sister Chapel, a portable exhibition of the project they intended to take on. First, nators Maggie Smith, Molly Ellingsworth, paintings of heroic women in a chapel-like none of them had had any earlier large- Dona Friedman, Frances Lattanzio and structure created by 13 women artists (see scale organizing experience in conducting a Karol Sue Reddington concurred on one Womanart, W inter/Spring 1977). They complicated symposium. True, all were point: what they had envisaged and at­ are also interested in sponsoring a Visiting competent in their respective professional tempted was successful. The interest they Artists series. They feel it is not difficult for and artistic disciplines, but they were none­ had attracted to the symposium was au­ women to get into Seattle galleries, and theless newcomers to dealing with the thentic and sincerely offered. The numbers many of them have exhibited there already. formidable logistical challenges a Women’s of people who attended the programs and However, not all doors are flung open to Art Symposium would present. Even more the enthusiastic tenor of their commenda­ women artists. At a panel discussion, unsettling was the fact that, quite literally, tions and criticisms demonstrated that. “Gender in Art,” held at the and/or nothing of this magnitude had ever been Certainly the Women’s Art Symposium, Gallery, Dolores Tarzan, art critic for the attempted in southwestern Indiana. How­ like all innovations, knew its imperfections; Seattle Times, pointed out that a major ever, when the symposium was over, they still it proved itself a solid beginning to show of Northwest artists, held at the Con­ could certainly feel that their hopes and what they hope may evolve into a trend in temporary Art Museum of the Seattle Art efforts were vindicated. Not only had they mid-western awareness of women’s contri­ Pavilion, included no women at all. And a attracted over $35,000 in local grants and butions to the contemporary American arts look at the catalog of a major drawing contributions, they had also elicited a and to artistic concerns. collection just organized under the auspices heartening, broadly-based enthusiasm —John Christie of the Washington Art Consortium, enti­ both in the city and outlying areas. tled Works on Paper: American A rt 1945- The Symposium opened at the Turman 1975, revealed only three women repre­ sented in a total of 52 works. The group has Art Gallery with a national invitational Women Artists Group exhibition of contemporary American wo­ plenty of work cut out for it. men artists, a varied presentation of over 60 of the Northwest The Women Artists Group of the North­ pieces comprising a sampling of women’s west may be reached at P.O. Box 9462, contributions in major and specialized The Women Artists Group of the North­ Seattle, Washington 98109. Dues are $5 artistic media. The themes were humanism west, located in Seattle, Washington, has per year. and eloquence of artistic statement rather about 200 members. The original concept —June Blum than shrill protest, though protest did have of the organization was to embrace all the its place, implicitly. From Louise Nevel- arts, and membership includes artists, son’s wood sculpture to Cecile Abish’s poets, lawyers, dancers and writers, and photo documentations of installations to extends to neighboring states such as Alice Neel’s portraiture and Judy Chicago’s Oregon. drawing, the exhibition competently re­ The Women Artists Group started as an flected the growing scope and creative idea of Anne Focke, director of Seattle’s diversity of today’s women artists. It ran and/or Gallery, when she invited some ERRATUM from the ninth through the 28th of women artists to a meeting at that gallery in On page 38, Womanart, Winter/Spring February. 1974. Louise Bernikow, author of The World In 1976, after a consciousness-raising 1977, the conclusion o f the interview with Jackie Skiles was mistakenly attributed to Split Open, an anthology of women’s session led by artist Judy Chicago, whom poetry from 1550-1950, was the keynote they had invited there, (some loved it, some Mary A nn Gillies. We apologize fo r any confusion caused by the error. speaker for the opening segment on women hated it), the group broke away from the writers, and her remarks set the tone and and/or Gallery and began having meetings

35 In New York, WOMANART may be purchased at:

SoHo: Jamie Canvas, 148 Spring St. New Morning, 169 Spring St. Printed Matter, 105 Hudson St. Jaap Rietman, 167 Spring St. SoHo Books, 307 West Broadway untitled postcards, 159 Prince St. plus selected galleries

Midtown Gotham Book Mart, 41 West 47 St. Pan Am Building, Lobby Newsstand, 200 Park Avenue Rizzoli, 712 Fifth Avenue

West Side New Yorker Bookshop, 250 West 89 St. Papyrus Books, 2915 Broadway (114th St.) Womanbooks, 201 West 92 St.

East Side Captan Bookstore, 1492 Third Avenue (nr. 84th St.) Hyde Park Stationers, 992 Madison Avenue Wittenbom, 1018 Madison Avenue

Brooklyn Community Bookstore, 143 Seventh Avenue

Long Island Central Hall Artists, 52 Main Street, Port Washington

Upstate Syracuse Book Center, 113 Marshall St., Syracuse

Massachusetts 100 Flowers Bookstore Cooperative, 15 Pearl S t., Cambridge (plus other Cambridge locations in the near future)

WOMANART will soon be on sale in other cities and states across the U.S. A. Please ask for it where art or feminist periodicals are sold.