Through Most of Art History Women Artists Have Been Largely Ignored

Home , Angelica Kauffman, Barbara Longhi, Elizabeth Thompson, Rebecca Solomon

SESSION 18 Women artists 1400 - 2000 (Monday 3rd February & Tuesday 7th January)

1. Sofonisba Anguissola 1.1. The Chess Game 1555 Oil on canvas, National Museum Warsaw (72 X 97 cm) 2. Barbara Longhi, 2.1. Madonna and Child 1580-85 Oil on canvas, Indianopolis Museum of Art (48 X29 cm) 3. Lavinia Fontana, 3.1. Minerva Dressing 1613 Borghese Gallery, Rome 4. Artemisia Gentileschi, 4.1. Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting 1638 Oil on canvas, Royal Collection, London (96 X 74 cm) 5. Rachel Ruysch, 5.1. Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies, and Other Flowers in an Urn on a Stone Ledge 1688 Oil on canvas, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington 6. Judith Leyster, 6.1. The Proposition 1631 Oil on panel, Mauritshuis, The Hague (31 X 24 cm) 7. Angelica Kauffman 7.1. The Sorrow of Telemachus 1783 Oil on canvas, MMA New York (33 X 114 cm) [ and see The Conjurer 1775 by Nathaniel Hone] 8. Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun 8.1. Self-Portrait with Her Daughter Julie 1789 Oil on canvas , Louvre, Paris (130 X 94cm) 9. Marie-Denise Villers, 9.1. Portrait of Charlotte du Val d'Ognes, 1801, oil on canvas MMA, New York 10. Emily Mary Osborn 10.1. Nameless and Friendless 1857 Tate Britain Oil on canvas (82 X 103 cm) 11. Rebecca Solomon 11.1. The Governess 1851 Oil on canvas, (66 X 86 cm) 12. Elizabeth Thompson (Lady Butler) 12.1. Scotland Forever 1881 Oil on canvas, Leeds Art Gallery 13. Rosa Bonheur 13.1. Ploughing in the Nivernais 1849 Oil on canvas, Musee D’Orsay (133 X 260 cm) 14. Berthe Morisot 14.1. Portrait of a Young Lady 1878 Oil on canvas Musée Fabre, Montpellier 15. Suzanne Valadon 16.1 Casting the Net 1914 Oil on canvas Georges Pompidou Centre, Paris (184 X 273 cm) 16. Evelyn Dunbar 17.1 1944 Pastoral: Land Girls Pruning at East Malling 1944 Oil on canvas Manchester Art Gallery (91 X 121 cm) 17. Bridget Riley Cataract 3 1967 Emulsion PVA on linen, British Council collection (221.9 X 222.9 cm)

Through most of art history women artists have been largely ignored. It was only in the early 1970s that (female) academics, such as Linda Nolen (Why Have there been no Great Women Artists?) Sofonisba Anguissola was by no means the first woman painter but may have achieved public recognition beyond her predecessors. Her high status, from a noble family, prevented the belittling that other female artists suffered. When she was 23 she painted The Chess Game depicting members of her family; female chess players were frequently regarded with suspicion – their intellectual capacities being questioned and the opportunity for flirtation.

Sofonisba benefited from her families wealth, Barbara Longhi from having an artist as a father. I believe she brought a special tenderness to her usual subject of Madonna and Child. She was adept at using sfumato and the pyramidal structure in the Style of Leonardo.

Lavinia Fontana also learnt her skills in her father’s (Prospero Fontana)studio and was well educated; fortunately, Bologna’s university accepted women. She could not attend the Carracci School because it emphasised the painting of nudes – which makes Minerva Dressing even more impressive. She had eleven children but worked continually as a prolific artist, helped by her husband who acted as her assistant. Minerva Dressing is on of her last pictures and demonstrates her skill at depicting clothes – for which she was renowned.

Until recent years, Artemesia Gentileschi was ignored as an artist, unlike her father, Orazio. In Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia, the personification of ‘Painting’ is described as 'a beautiful woman, with full black hair, dishevelled, and twisted in various ways, with arched eyebrows that show imaginative thought, the mouth covered with a cloth tied behind her ears, with a chain of gold at her throat from which hangs a mask, and has written in front 'imitation''. Her image was much in demand by 17th Century collectors who recognised her ability.

Rachel Ruysch’s father was a scientist, not an artist, and she may have learnt from him how to observe and record nature. Her paintings were deservedly popular with a distinguished clientele throughout her long life. While many such flower paintings included ‘vanitas’ elements, stressing the brevity of life, she seems to just have delighted in depicting the details of life.

Judith Leyster’s work was often attributed to Frans Hals. The usual convention of genre paintings of The Proposition type was to dress the woman provocatively and the exchange of money a mutually agreed transaction. So, a not unreasonable feminist interpretation of this painting is to see the respectable sewing woman as an ‘embarrassed victim’ (Hofrichter). Others claim this is as an honest attempt at courtship.

Despite being a founding member of the Royal Academy and respected as a ‘history painter’, Angelica Kauffman had to endure being vilified as having an affair with Sir Joshua Reynolds. Her fellow academician Hone’s The Conjurer originally included a naked caricature of her naked in the top left hand corner.

Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun may be most famous for her portraits of Marie-Antoinette. The 1787 ofher with her daughter was criticised because it showed her open mouthed and showing her teeth, in contravention to tradition. Perhaps more surprisingly, Simone de Beauvoir criticised her as a narcissist in The Second Sex (1949) : ): "Madame Vigée-Lebrun never wearied of putting her smiling maternity on her canvases.”

The attributions of The Portrait of Charlotte du Val d'Ognes illustrates well how the work of women artists can be devalued. The Met bought the painting in 1922 believing it was by David. In 1951, this was found to be mistaken and it was attributed to Constance Charpentier. In 1996, this was changed to Marie-Denise Villers. What is disturbing is that critics seemed to notice more imperfections in the work after it was no longer considered to be by David.

Emily Mary Osborn was an artist associated with the campaign for women’s right in the nineteenth century. Nameless and Friendless portrays the plight of a widow attempting to sell one of her paintings to a disdainful shop owner. The two leering men are looking at a picture of a ballet dancer two leering men look on, and a respectable matron leaves the shop. The roles of women in the Victorian urban environment are well illustrated.

Rebecca Solomon also used genre paintings to critique Victorian attitudes to women and to class. She worked in the studio of John Everett Millais and later with Edward Burne-Jones. Along with other women she successfully petitioned the Royal Academy to admit women.

Elizabeth Lady Butler was already a known painter of military subjects before she married Major (later General) Butler in 1877. Being able to use her status to watch army manoeuvres assisted her art. Her pictures of heroism were immensely popular, at least one of which was bought by Queen Victoria. During the Great War the image of the charging Scots Greys was used by both the British and Germans as propaganda.

Rosa Bonheur was also commercially successful in her own lifetime, probably the foremost animal painter of her era. Her staunch belief in women’s equality include wearing men’s clothing, necessitating the obtaining of a special permit. Ploughing in the Nivernais was her first major success and its ‘realism’ is reminiscent of the work of Corot and Courbet.

Berthe Morisot exhibited for six years in the Salon from 1864 until she joined the rejected artists of Impressionism in 1874. She was married to Eugene Manet, the brother of her friend Edouard Manet. Her work often involved domestic scenes, a reflection of her class and gender of the time. She wanted to be thought of as her male colleagues: "I don't think there has ever been a man who treated a woman as an equal and that's all I would have asked for, for I know I'm worth as much as they." Maybe the quality of her work can be better recognised now than ever.

Suzanne Valadon was from a working class background and probably learnt her skills while acting as an artists’ models. In 1896 she married and affluent banker which allowed her to become a fulltime painter. After a divorce in 1913 she was able to marry her lover André Utter around the time she painted Casting the Net a huge painting depicting three near life size male nudes; a dramatic role reversal with the female artist becoming the voyeur.

Evelyn Dunbar was a British artist, teacher and illustrator. She is notable for recording women’s contributions to the Home Front during World War II as the only woman working for the War Artists’ Advisory Committee.

Bridget Riley was an early proponent of Op Art, but her earlier work was figurative in an impressionist style. She credits the work of Seurat in developing her optical style. From around 1960 on she developed the geometric black and white works for which she may be best known; the works induce sensations of movement or colour. She starting introducing colour from around 1967, and continued to develop new styles.