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A History of Feminist Art History Remaking a Discipline and Its Institutions Victoria Horne PhD History of Art The University of Edinburgh 2014 THESIS ABSTRACT Recognising art’s crucial function for reproducing economic and sexual differences, feminist political interventions - alongside a range of ‘new’ critical perspectives including Marxism, psychoanalysis and poststructuralism - have wrought historic changes upon the production, circulation and consumption of art. This is widely acknowledged in art historical scholarship. However, understanding that ‘art history’ (as a historically conditioned discipline) is concurrently reproductive of these ideological and material inequalities, feminist scholars have significantly and continually sought to intervene at the point of production – the writing of art’s history – to expose its social role and remake the fundamental terms of the discipline. This is a truth less widely acknowledged or, at least, less well-understood within contemporary scholarship. This thesis, therefore, seeks to examine the discipline of art history in Anglo- American contexts to assess the impact that feminist models of scholarship have had upon its knowledges and practices. This is attained through extensive literature overviews, archival research and, to a lesser extent, email interviews with key contributors to the discourse. Ultimately, this examination endeavours to address the production and regulation of feminist knowledge across a number of expanded (and interconnected) institutional sites. Case studies track the impact of feminist strategies upon the authoring of art history in the classroom, within scholarly professional organisations, academic publishing, the museum sector, and upon art-making itself. The research evaluates the mutable power structures of the discipline, how feminist interventions have had success in rethinking the limits of institutional knowledge, and how it may be possible to articulate critique under twenty-first-century conditions of institutional complicity and the hegemonic recuperation (or indeed ‘disciplining’) of radical practices. To date – and despite its prominence within much feminist writing - the importance of art historiography for the feminist political project has not been properly examined; the aim of this thesis is therefore to redress this omission and provide a timely and comprehensive critical reading of feminist knowledge production since around 1970. i DECLARATION I declare that this thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History of Art has been composed by myself, is entirely my own work, and has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. Victoria Horne 17 April 2015 ii CONTENTS List of Illustrations iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v INTRODUCTION 1 What’s Feminist About Feminist Art History? CHAPTER ONE 33 Feminist Art Pedagogy: Challenging Institutional Structures through the Classroom CHAPTER TWO 83 ‘Our project is not to add to art history…but to change it’. The emergence of feminism and the UK Association of Art Historians, 1974-90 CHAPTER THREE 134 The Museum: Feminist Exhibitions and Exhibiting Feminism CHAPTER FOUR 183 Making Art History: The Woman Artist as Historiographer CONCLUSIONS 221 Bibliography 228 iii ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE 1. SYLVIA SLEIGH, PHILLIP GOLUB RECLINING, 1971. .............................................................198 FIGURE 2. DIEGO VELASQUEZ, VENUS AT HER TOILETTE, 1647-51. ......................................................198 FIGURE 3. SYLVIA SLEIGH, AT THE TURKISH BATHS, 1976....................................................................199 FIGURE 4. J.A.D. INGRES, AT THE TURKISH BATHS, 1862. ....................................................................199 FIGURE 5. HANNAH WILKE, I OBJECT, MEMOIRS OF A SUGAR GIVER, 1977........................................199 FIGURE 6. MARCEL DUCHAMP, ÉTANT DONNÉS, 1946-66.....................................................................199 FIGURE 7. HANNAH WILKE, THROUGH THE LARGE GLASS, 10-MINUTE 16MM VIDEO, 1976..................199 FIGURE 8. MARCEL DUCHAMP, THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE BY HER BACHELORS, EVEN, 1915-23. ........199 FIGURE 9. KATE DAVIS, WHO IS A WOMAN NOW?, 1998. ......................................................................202 FIGURE 10. WILLEM DE KOONING, WOMAN I,.......................................................................................202 FIGURE 11. ANA VIEIRA, LE DEJEUNER SUR L'HERBE, 1976. .................................................................203 FIGURE 12. EDOUARD MANET, LE DEJEUNER SUR L'HERBE, 1863.........................................................203 FIGURE 13. ELEANOR ANTIN, CARVING: A TRADITIONAL SCUPLTURE, 1972..........................................207 FIGURE 14. TANJA OSTOJIC, BLACK SQUARE ON WHITE, 2001. .............................................................211 FIGURE 15. GUSTAVE COURBET, L'ORIGIN DU MONDE, 1866...............................................................214 FIGURE 16. ORLAN, ORIGIN OF WAR, 1989. ..........................................................................................214 FIGURE 17. SOPHIE MATISSE, BE BACK IN 5 MINUTES, 1997.................................................................214 FIGURE 18. TANJA OSTOJIC, EU PANTIES, OR AFTER COURBET?, 2004.................................................214 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My sincerest thanks go to my supervisor at the University of Edinburgh, Angela Dimitrakaki. Her generosity and encouragement have extended far beyond that demanded by her supervisory role and I am honoured to consider her both a friend and inspiring feminist colleague. I am also deeply appreciative of the support provided by my previous teacher, Amelia Jones, whose stimulating seminars at the University of Manchester contributed to my decision to undertake a PhD. In addition I would like to thank the staff and postgraduate community at the University of Edinburgh, particularly Richard Williams, for creating such a friendly and supportive research environment over the past four years. Practical thanks must go the School of History of Art for granting generous financial support during my doctoral studies. I am also indebted to the numerous scholars who agreed to speak to me for this thesis, as well as to organisers at the Women’s Art Library, Goldsmiths and the AAH papers in the V&A archives. It was a great pleasure to attend Lara Perry’s international research workshops during 2010- 11 on feminism and curating, and I am grateful for her continued confidence and collaboration. Finally, I also wish to thank Alexandra Kokoli for examining my first year review and for providing indispensable advice at that formative stage of my research. Too many friends and colleagues have contributed informally to this thesis to acknowledge here, but I am indebted to all of them for dragging me back to reality and, probably too often, to the pub. In particular I would like to thank Andy Hardman, Kirsten Lloyd and Harry Weeks, whose energetic intellectual ambitions have kept me rushing to keep up. Beyond the specificities of our research I cannot even begin to express my gratitude for their supportive and committed friendships. Last but certainly not least I have to acknowledge the love and encouragement of my family: memorably, my granny Elvie who passed away during my time at Edinburgh; my parents, Andrew and Fiona; my siblings, Felicity and David; and Ryan. v It was surprising and moving to realise how much inspiration and nourishment the young women artists drew from the discovery of their predecessors. The elucidation of a continuous tradition in which they could see their own lives and work was so valuable to them, on a profoundly personal level, that it changed my idea of the real value of history. I realized what it had probably always meant to men, whose tradition it so clearly and thoroughly traced, and what it could mean to me and to other women. Paula Harper (1985) vi INTRODUCTION What’s feminist about feminist art history?1 Although they instance only a portion of a much larger field of enquiry, the books stacked upon my desk by chance reveal a significant pattern within their subtitles: Performing the Subject; Writing the Artist; Differencing the Canon; Questioning the Litany; Entering the Picture. The insistent linguistic repetition stresses that feminist enquiry is a dynamic process, one that acts upon art history’s objects of study (the artist, the canon, the picture) and strives to make anew. Since around 1970, feminist writers have tackled the notoriously conservative discipline of art history,2 and by strategically adopting a critical oppositional