“One female painter we will hear more of this winter is Paula Modersohn-Becker, about whom Uwe Schneede has written a well-illustrated survey. An exhibition of Modersohn-Becker’s art will open at the Royal Academy (12 November 2022-12 February 2023) alongside art by Käthe Kollwitz, Gabriele Munther and Marianne Werefkin.
“
“A London training
“Paula Becker was born in Dresden in 1876 to a large middle-class family. Paula’s first intensive art training came in St John’s Wood Art School when she came to London for an extended stay over 1892-3. Her appetite whetted, and she undertook more art courses in Bremen and later in Berlin.
Moving to the artists’ commune of Worpswede in 1898, Becker became a minor member as a newcomer to an existing group. She learned from fellow painters of similar outlooks and where she met (and painted) poet Rainer Maria Rilke. In 1901 Paula married Otto Modersohn. She did not see marriage as slowing her down. “Just because I am getting married, that is no reason not to become somebody.”…”
The Wyvern Collection of Medieval arts and crafts is one of the best-quality collections in the world. It is one of the largest in private hands. This book is the fourth volume in the catalogue raisonné of the collection. Including the 210 entries in this volume, the total number of entries in the series is 744 so far. Further volumes are under preparation.
Fittingly, the first item described is a chrismatory, a receptable for chrism (blessed oil used in liturgy). The small casket was made by Anglo-Saxon craftsmen around 800 and is extremely rare. It has been altered several times, mostly in ancient times. It probably came through the dissolution of the French ecclesiastical institutions during the French Revolution. Like all of the artefacts in the collection, they show signs of wear and repair. Gemstones have frequently been pried off.
The enamels – largely from Limoges, a centre of enamel production during the Medieval and Renaissance periods – present us with an in-depth selection of the high-end pieces produced for churches and private commissioners. The precious materials used demonstrate the importance of this type of work to the Limoges painters. The grisaille panels of the 1530-45 are striking. A Flagellation of Christ (c. 1550-60) is near grisaille, with only the flesh tones lightly tinted and the bloody wounds of Christ stark crimson. Small enamelled panels have come from objects that were broken up, with the silver or gold being melted down. The depth of the collection allows us to see how these parts would have been combined.
Reliquaries feature in this catalogue. Reliquaries are elaborate containers designed to hold small fragments associated with the lives of holy figures (Christ, the Holy Family, saints), including precious metals, gems and exotic materials – such as tropical shells, coral and other curiosities. Inset enamelled panels are common in the reliquaries in the Wyvern Collection. Plaques with religious scenes were made to adorn book covers. Another outstanding treasure is a plaque showing the incredulity of St. Thomas encountering the risen Christ, made in enamel and silver in Abruzzo, c. 1430-40. Flowers are in silver and vines are of twisted silver wire.
These paxes, pyxes, chrismatories, reliquaries, monstrances, chalices, censers, incense boats, crosses and other liturgical objects form a veritable survey of the most traditional of Christian spiritual metalwork. There are non-Christian artefacts, such as brooches, rings, cups, horns, tiles, dishes and plates. An oddity is a letter from Edward III granting fishing rights to the Earl of Cornwall, no doubt preserved because of the elaborate giant royal wax seal. There are some handsome helmets with gilding. The artisans who worked to decorate armour were those who would have worked on the type of liturgical objects in the Wyvern Collection.
Perhaps the most remarkable pieces are the stained glass from the South Netherlands, c. 1490-1530, painted contemporaneously with Bosch. These are small roundels are of religious scenes, painted with exquisite care and skill. Another fine piece is a salt well (c. 1560-70) from the workshop of Pierre Raymond is in grisaille enamel with gilding and is decorated with various animals on its sides; there is a pelican in the shallow rounded well. Most of the objects came from central and northern Europe.
The publication is thorough, with detailed descriptions, bibliographies and provenance for each artefact, with moderate or large colour illustration, some with multiple views. Scholars have been consulted to identify origins and materials and the commentaries describe the notable features and functions of artefacts. Bibliographies and auction backgrounds for each entry allow researchers to trace ownership and follow the scholarship. The book is sumptuously produced, with high-quality printing, generous size and a cloth hardcover binding. This volume will appeal to collectors, auction houses, historians and specialist libraries.
Paul Williamson, The Wyvern Collection: Medieval and Renaissance Enamels and Other Works of Art, Thames & Hudson, 2021, cloth hb, 480pp, 400 col. illus., £65, ISBN 978 0 500 02456 0
Livres d’artiste should (theoretically) be the most available of art, being more common than artist’s prints and cheaper than a drawing or painting, at the time of the book’s publication. Paradoxically, artists’ books are actually art works that are the least accessible and most difficult to understand. The high price of the books, their rarity and difficulty of access make artists’ books some of the least familiar of art works. Individual drawing, prints and paintings are exhibited and reproduced frequently; artists’ books are displayed partially, usually without accompanying text. It is rarely possible to exhibit a whole book and it is almost impossible to handle an expensive artists’ book. This is especially true for the books of Henri Matisse (1869-1954). With some Matisse volumes selling for over $500,000, there is virtually no chance for anyone other than a rich collector or a privileged researcher to handle such books.
In Matisse: The Books, Louise Rogers Lalaurie outlines the contents of each Matisse’s eight artist books, designed and published over a period of 18 years. The following books are described, analysed and reproduced (in part): Stéphane Mallarmé, Poésies, 1930/1932; Dessins, Thèmes et Variations, 1942/1943; Pierre de Ronsard, Florilège des Amours, 1942/1948; Charles d’Orléans, Poèmes, 1943/1950; Henri de Montherlant, Pasiphaé: Chant de Minos, 1943/1944; Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal, 1947; Marianna Alcaforado, Lettres Portugaises, 1946; and Jazz, 1947.
The books were published by gallerists and art publishers, such as Albert Skira, Martin Fabiani and Tériade, always designed to be sumptuous productions offered to art collectors and bibliophiles. Matisse was very closely involved in the production of the books, offering guidance and criticism to master printer Roger Lacourière (for Jazz, Edmond Vairel, Draeger Frères and Angèle Lamotte) and publishers. The delays between Matisse finalising the designs and art and the publication dates were due to the exacting technical demands of working with high-specification printing, sourcing suitable materials and the difficulties of production during wartime. (Only two of his books was printed during the Occupation of France.) In each chapter, Rogers Lalaurie describes the book, discusses the contents and selection of text, explains the personal significance of the text to Matisse and leads us through the production process. The covers and selections of pages of each book are illustrated.
Stéphane Mallarmé, Poésies (created 1930, published 1932)was illustrated with flowing arabesque lines in etching (black ink). It is redolent of the Nice period of languid nudes and women in elegant clothing. Matisse’s recent Tahitian journey and the design for the Barnes mural La Danse appear in two designs. His Baudelaire is drawn close up – forceful and intense; Poe is withdrawn, melancholic. The text is reproduced in part, allowing us to appreciate the care put into the whole production. “Unlike Picasso, Matisse was determined to avoid any hint of a frame, even using copper plates larger than the page size in the final book, so that no indented plate mark would be left on the paper during printing.” The success of the book aesthetically must have encouraged artist and publishers to return to the field.
Regarding Poésies, an error of authorial approach is evident. Once again, I caution authors against imposing their current sensibility on speech of the past. Translating Matisse’s word nègre as “a Black man” (rather than the historically accurate “negro”) makes the artist writing in the 1940s sound like a progressive prig; misrepresenting the speaker does both the speaker and readers a disservice. If the word was good enough for Ralph Ellison (a black author, writing in the 1940s and 1950s), it is good enough for a translation of Matisse’s contemporaneous comments. Authors and publishers, trust readers to have the worldly sense not to view historical subjects as racist on the basis of the language of their times.
Dessins, Thèmes et Variations (created 1942, published 1943) is a selection of linocut, lithograph and photo-lithographic reproductions from Matisse’s art and is something of an exception in the artist books in that consists of material that was essentially pre-existing re-made for the purposes of inclusion in the book. It was made as defiance against the Nazi Occupation of France and the Vichy regime, containing Modernist art, decadent themes and a text by Louis Aragon, prominent Communist intellectual. Themes are the reclining woman (Lydia Delectorskaya, his assistant), portraits and still-lifes; the drawings in charcoal, pencil and ink-line, were photographed and reproduced through lithography. This is more of a portfolio summarising Matisse’s artistic position in 1942 than it is a genuine livre d’artiste, especially considering the pre-existence of illustrations as standalone works. The definition of an original artist’s print is that it should come into existence through the making of the print and not be a reproduction or transcription of an existing art work.
Pierre de Ronsard, Florilège des Amours (created 1942, published 1948) was published with 126 lithographs, in an edition of 360 copies. The drawings are elegant and pleasing and some – especially p. 187, “je veux…”, a woman’s profile woman as the closing image – are gracefully beautiful. Flowers and leaves dance around the typed text. The elegance of the text and images do not undercut the seriousness of author and artist.
Charles d’Orléans, Poèmes (created 1943, published 1950) marks a departure. Matisse handwrote the texts of Charles d’Orléans’s poems, which he had selected. The poems were printed on unbound folded sheets with drawings in lithography, some with drawn cartouches around texts. The designs include heraldic fleurs-de-lys. The print format on single sheets suits poems of 12 to 17 lines. The book was made in 1943 but not printed until 1950, using multi-colour lithography. Matisse apparently identified with Charles, who had been given up for dead upon a battlefield before being recovered from the bodies. Matisse had a brush with death in 1941 when he survived an operation for cancer. Charles subjects of exile and ostracization also struck a chord for the artist, who had been condemned by Nazi occupiers, Vichy collaborators and French traditionalists.
Henri de Montherlant, Pasiphaé: Chant de Minos, (created 1943, published 1944) was a play and a prefatory text by the author. The linocuts present the simplicity of Matisse’s designs within blocks of black. The illustrations were in black, as were the bandeaux; the lettrines (initial capitals) were in scarlet. The author – a patriot and war-hero of the Great War – came to Matisse’s studio to sit for portraits. It was the only time Matisse engaged with an existing text by a living author for the production of a livre d’artiste.
Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal, (created 1944-6, printed 1947) is the only book by Matisse that misses the mark. It is a failure of tone, as Alfred H. Barr noted. Matisse lacks the intensity, the power and the ability to produce material that is scabrous, sordid, dirty and ugly. The degradation of the Spleen section is completely outside Matisse’s range. Matisse selected only less rebarbative and pungent poems, providing each with a portrait (29 female, four male) and some abstract tailpieces. By selecting in order to match his outlook and capacity as an illustrator, Matisse effectively seems to misrepresent Baudelaire’s scope and intentions for Les Fleurs du Mal, deliberately avoiding the more difficult verse.
Marianna Alcaforado, Lettres Portugaises (created 1945, published 1946) is a set of letters ascribed to a Portuguese nun, written to her distant lover, a French diplomat. These passionate letters have been considered to be an epistolatory novel, so well do they present a narrative of desire, loss and grief. Matisse’s lithographs (printed in dark purple) are portraits of the nun (a 14-year-old local girl modelled) and designs of leaves and fruits work effectively. The natural forms add drama and punctuate the gradual changes in emotional register of the portraits.
Jazz (created 1943-6, published 1947) is unique among Matisse’s livres d’artiste in that is composed entirely of his words and images. Matisse’s handwritten text outlines his outlook, technique and aesthetics. The striking 20 colour planar prints – made by the pochoir (stencil) method – mirrored Matisse’s advances with the cut-out method, which consisted of colouring sheets of paper or card with gouache and cutting them with scissors, “drawing with scissors”, as Matisse put it. The motifs broadly relate to dance, music and performance (circus, trapeze acrobat, knife-thrower, sword-swallower, cowboy, swimmer, lion) but include natural forms of leaves, ripples, explosions and those that seem to be of sculpted women. The edition was 250 bound copies and 100 loose copies, the latter which were ideal for framed wall display. Matisse was initially disappointed by the print quality of the illustrations but eventually was reconciled to the book once he heard of its positive reception. Jazz remains the most famous and distinctive of Matisse’s books and its illustrations have become famous, commonly reproduced in books and as posters. Fittingly, it was his final book.
Full-page illustrations (including page edges), double-page spreads and cover images give readers a sense of handling and reading the books. The text is informative and explains the significance of the texts. The design and production quality of Matisse: The Books is high, with the best examples of the artist’s books being used to furnish illustrations. This book is highly recommended for fans of Matisse and livres d’artiste. For mere mortals, other than getting access to facsimile editions (themselves not cheap) Matisse: The Books is the closest we can come to handling Matisse’s books.
It would be a great service to enthusiasts of classic Modernism and artists’ books if Thames & Hudson were to publish Picasso: The Books, probably as a multi-volume work.
Louise Rogers Lalaurie, Matisse: The Books, Thames & Hudson, 2020, cloth hardback, 320pp, 237 illus., £65, ISBN 9780500021682
“One of the first targets of an invading army is the art of the defeated. Once cities are secured, army officers of the occupying force seek museums, palaces and cathedrals, intent on retrieving art for the benefit of the victors. However politely done, it is no different from the pillaging of ancient history. Two new books examine the art theft of occupying armies in two different ages.
“The Wedding Feast at Cana was painted by Paolo Veronese in 1563 for the wall of a Benedictine abbey on the Venetian isle of San Maggiore. Situated in the refectory, the picture depicts Christ seated at the centre of a wedding feast; the giant painting (almost 7 metres high by 10 metres wide) teems with brightly robed figures set in an illusionistically rendered architectural setting. On completion, it was recognised as a masterpiece of the Late Renaissance/Mannerist era, with connoisseurs travelling from around Europe to marvel at the painting.
“Cynthia Saltzman’s Napoleon’s Plunder: The Theft of Veronese’s Feast recounts what happened when Napoleon defeated the Austrians and took control of northern Italy in 1796, and how his roving eye turned to art. Portable treasures were to be sold to finance the cost of the war effort; the greatest of the art would be reserved for the Musée Napoléon, the French Republic’s public art museum (sited in the Louvre). Saltzman outlines the extraction of art from not only Italy but Spain, Flanders, Holland, Vienna and Berlin, all intended for Napoleon’s museum….”
A new edition of the letters of Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) guides us through the inner world of one of the world’s great painters. It is only the latest in a series that dates back to the years immediately following the artist’s death. The editions produced under the guidance of Jo Bonger Van Gogh (widow of Theo Van Gogh) are credited with being a major factor in popularising Van Gogh’s art. Evers Yours (2009) was another collection very similar to this one but without any footnotes or illustrations of paintings. The new A Life in Letters is a version with more commentary and extra information. It also includes an index. Van Gogh corresponded primarily with members of his family and fellow artists, with some letters to critics. There were letters to his lovers and the objects of his devotion, but those were all destroyed.
A Life in Letters follows Van Gogh from the age of 27 up to days before his death in the summer of 1890. The majority of the letters are to his younger brother Theo, who was more settled and focussed than Vincent. Theo made a career in art dealing, following in the footsteps of his uncle. (Vincent also tried this but found himself to be incompatible with the niceties and deference expected of picture dealers.) The pair confided in each other and Vincent came to rely on Theo for a regular allowance after the death of their father.
The year 1880 was a critical one for Vincent. At this point his increasing involvement in art – he had always drawn and taken an interest in fine art – became central in his life. The failure of his previous vocation of being a missionary among the working class had led him from helping the poor directly to portraying the poor and thereby promoting reform through greater understanding and empathy with miners, weavers and peat cutters. His first works as an aspiring artist were depictions of workers, drawn in charcoal. He soon lavished money on materials and hiring models. His letters form such a careful record of his artistic endeavours and thoughts because he considered Theo a collaborator and also had to justify the use of the expenses and materials that Theo provided. There was genuine love and respect – and more than a little loneliness – that drove his writing but Vincent was additionally working consciously to maintain the good favour of a brother who was also his patron.
One appealing aspect of Vincent’s letters are the illustrations. He was sketch in pencil or ink the compositions of his paintings, something he had seen and a place where he lived. Sometimes the illustrations were more elaborate. In his letter of 31 July 1882, Vincent drew a pollarded willow in a gloomy landscape using ink and watercolour. The letter illustrations are included as part of the page in facsimile form, which shows how the drawings were integrated into the text. For Vincent, speech, writing and image-making were interchangeable.
Vincent’s frequent moves act as a form of punctuation in his biography. There were periods in various places in the Netherlands, England, Belgium, Paris, South France and Auvers-sur-Oise, where he died. Short editorial introductions explain the biographical circumstances during the period in question. The notes at the end explain some obscure references in the letters. Under the colour plates are extracts of the letters relating specifically to the paintings.
The move to Arles sparked a flood of art in a new quasi-Impressionist manner that came to be called Post-Impressionist. He wrote rapturously about the south, the quality of the light and the clothing of the locals. Included in this collection are letter to Emile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, discussing a plan to set up an artists’ commune in Arles at the Yellow House. Gauguin came but Vincent and he quarrelled over art and domestic matters. Vincent’s breakdown in a psychotic episode which caused him to cut off his ear led to him being confined to a mental asylum in St Rémy. His letters from the asylum are the most affecting and vivid as he describes his suffering and his dwindling hopes for a full recovery. The move north to Auvers-sur-Oise did not save him.
This is a fine edition of one of the great documents of Western art – somewhat more approachable than the other editions – and is warmly recommended to every reader.
Vincent’s Books: Van Gogh and the Writers Who Inspired Him is Mariella Guzzoni’s study of Vincent as a reader and the way his responses to books shaped his outlook. Central was the Bible. Vincent had an ambivalent relationship with Christianity, no doubt in part influenced by his turbulent relationship with his father, who was a pastor. While Vincent was unstinting in his admiration for the example and teaching of Christ, he was temperamentally set against the Church – as he saw it. Perhaps it was his tendency towards activities that the Church taught as sinful – sex outside of marriage and drinking – and his passionate attachment to the physical sensual world that drove him into conflict with conventional religion. He remembered many Biblical passages by heart (he had a good memory) and considered de Kempis’s Imitation of Christ a touchstone for living a Godly life.
He was a constant reader and frequently recommended books to his brother, at the beginning mainly religious texts and later modern novels. The 1885 painting of an open Bible next to a copy of the 1884 yellow-jacketed edition Zola’s La joie de vivre (1874) presents a contrast in the might and authority of Christianity and a description of modern life. Beyond the obviousness of the symbolism, this painting is a biographical sketch of the artist. There are other oil paintings of still-lifes including books; many of these books can be identified and Guzzoni links these books with Vincent’s written comments in letters. She explains what moved Vincent about the books and authors, quoting the books and providing synopses.
Vincent frequently moved between discussion of art and literature, treating them as comparable forms of description and expression. Favourite illustrators were Herkomer, Doré and Fildes. Vincent encountered many paintings in the form of the reproduction prints. This is particularly true of the compositions of J.-F. Millet, some included in Sensier’s 1881 biography of the “painter of peasants”. Millet’s depictions of rural workers and their families were the art that was closest to Vincent’s heart. While in the asylum in St-Rémy, Vincent painted Millet’s scenes. Guzzoni discusses Vincent’s project to sell Japanese woodcuts and how he may have learned about the art form through a book by Louis Gonse.
Vincent’s favourite authors included Dickens, Zola, Daudet, Maupassant, Hugo, Michelet, Shakespeare and the de Goncourt brothers. Guzzoni has tracked down copies of the books that Vincent mentioned and sought the editions he read. These are reproduced in her book. This book presents illustrations that Vincent followed. An illustration from Alphonse Daudet’s Tartarin sur les Alpes (1885) inspired Vincent’s Artist on the Road to Tarascon (1888). Vincent visited the town of Tarascon specifically because of Dadet’s novels to draw and painted a coach there that reminded him of the stories.
Vincent’s Books covers all aspects of Vincent as a reader, book owner and maker of art featuring books and readers. The author guides readers through these aspects with a deft touch and thorough knowledge. This will become an essential book for anyone seeking detailed understanding of Vincent Van Gogh’s art and thought.
Mariella Guzzoni, Vincent’s Books: Van Gogh and the Writers Who Inspired Him, Thames & Hudson, 2020, hardback, 232pp, fully col. illus., £19.95, ISBN 978 0 500 09412 9
Vincent van Gogh, Nienke Bakker, Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten (eds.), Vincent van Gogh: A Life in Letters, Thames & Hudson/Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, 2020, hardback, 432pp, 85 illus., £30, ISBN 978 0 500 09424 2
Against Our Will: Sexual Trauma in American Art Since 1970 is a study of one of the planks of the second-wave of feminism: sexual violence. Rape, assault and subjugation are considered manifestations of the second-class status of women, so they are emblematic subjects for feminist art. Vivien Green Fryd writes: “Against Our Will: Sexual Trauma in American Art Since 1970 examines how and why feminist artists, working from the 1970s to the second decade of the twenty-first century, represented and challenged the dominant narrative about sexual violence against women. I demonstrate in this book that for more than forty years, a key group of American artists has insisted on ending the silence and contributed to an anti-rape, anti-incest counternarrative […]” This is a peculiar characterisation. Rape, assault, incest and marital cruelty have been subject to legal penalty and social opprobrium for many centuries. There certainly was a culture of reticence and aversion to discussion of sexual matters and family violence but that does not equate to approval for legal and moral infractions.
Fryd includes art by male homosexual artists in this discussion. The idea is that this art critiques systematic faults of a patriarchal society and therefore aligns with the feminist position. Fryd has chronicled the plethora of feminist performances and exhibitions relating to the theme of sexual violence but cannot detach herself from the subject. The author’s accounts of historical activity are accurate and informative but the narrative becomes partial when discussing recent events. Fryd’s discussion of Emma Sulkowicz (famed as “Mattress Girl”), a Columbia University art student who claimed to have been raped and turned the allegation into part of an art performance, is disingenuous. The university settled with the accused and exonerated him of the accusation. When, at the close of the book, Fryd’s avows that she hope her book has contributed to the feminist cause, no reader will be surprised at this expression of a campaigning intent.
Nancy Princenthal’s Unspeakable Acts: Women, Art, and Sexual Violence in the 1970s covers much of the same ground. Princenthal identifies 1970 and the few years following as a turning point in public attitudes to sexual assault. She nominates (in the American context) the sexual revolution, the women’s liberation movement and the Vietnam war as pivotal events socially and the rise of Conceptual Art, Body Art, performance, Land Art and allied movements as artistic currents that facilitated the adoption by women of the stories of rape and sexual violence. The unspoken element was the rise of Marxism in academia, with university lecturers pledging themselves to the New Left, which would use what we now call identity politics to advance socialism through lobbying for minority rights. It is within such a context that Feminist art would be artistically and politically sanctioned by the New Left. (It would be this very co-option that later gave rise to concerns voiced by some feminist academics.)
The line between sexual liberation and exploitation was a deliberately blurred one – and the inevitable consequence of deliberate transgression by activists at American universities. Within the counter-culture movements and terrorist groups, sex was offered and demanded in the service of the revolution. Princenthal exposes the cool dismissal of women’s issues by hard-line Marxists, the aggressive misogyny of Frantz Fanon and rape advocacy of Eldridge Cleaver and LeRoi Jones. The murders of the hippy commune/cult around Charles Manson were an expression of revolutionary violence, committed by a group including women willing to kill other women for thrills but ostensibly as part of a cultural war.
Princenthal, using quotes from primary sources and new interviews with participants, sets out some touchstones of literature on rape in the 1970s. She discusses early celebrated performances of Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece (first performed 1964) and those by Valie Export involving voyeurism and audience participation. Work by Marina Abramović, Vito Acconci, Ana Mendieta, Adrian Piper and others are mentioned and key performances and publications are deftly summarised. Performance art and the theatre of public protest have numerous parallels and in the case of politically motivated art the two intersect. The importance of collective action and staged spectacle are foregrounded as important components of feminist performances.
New York, New Wave discusses the influence of feminist art of the 60s and 70s on recent artists, explaining that the diffusion of politics and multiple creative approaches are more important that gender politics for today’s postmodernists. The illustrations provide a handy survey of art discussed. The book is clearly written and approachable.
The Art of Feminism studies women’s art from Victorian times to the present day. Although most readers will be interested in art from the 1960s onwards, the most interesting material is the art produced during the suffrage and world wars periods. Skill and ingenuity were used to advance the case for women’s rights in posters that are brilliant, effective and beautiful; that art contrasts with feminist art of recent decades, which is intentionally ugly, angry and confrontational. (The authors mischaracterise the anti-suffrage movement, which in part was an earnest attempt by women to protect their privileges (exemptions from the draft, jury duty and debt liability) which it was assumed would be lost if they were made equal to men.) Oddly, the leading women Abstract Expressionist painters are omitted underlining the political scope of the survey, which limits its usefulness. The quoting of “gender pay gap” statistics indicates the lack of clarity when it comes to political hot topics.
The Bigger Picture: Women who Changed the Art World inspires mixed feelings. It is an attractive and informative book (including brief questionnaires with living artists) that will appeal to younger children. It does a good job explaining art to children but some of the art is tiresome and obscure even for informed adults. It also fails to acknowledge legitimate objections to feminism in art. Feminism has not changed art practice other than by promoting existing attitudes and approaches. It has failed to produce much art of worth. Plausibly feminists could claim that these were never their intention. What they have succeeded in doing is entrenching politics in art. Feminism has also shone a light on women artists (past and present) but at the cost of turning women artists into tokens.
The subtitle of “400 artists, 500 years” gives the outline of the dictionary Great Women Artists. This attractive hardback devotes one large-format page to a substantial illustration, biographical data and a paragraph devoted to a different artist. There is much material here that is unfamiliar – some of it very weak – but there are some real finds among the lesser-known figures: Ellen Altfest, Louise Jopling, Katsushika Ōl, Zinaida Serebryakova, Uemura Shōen. The artists share nothing in common except their sex.
Breaking Ground: Architecture by Womenfollows a similar format, with one to four pages devoted to buildings by women. The book contains a great breadth of architecture in diverse buildings, styles, sizes and locations. For those not following architecture, the names will be unfamiliar even if some of the structures are already known. Architecture allows less potential for expression but the startling, impressive and inventive designs – marrying function and aesthetics – are more satisfying than the majority of the art in Great Women Artists. Of the two books, it is Breaking Ground that is the more surprising and delightful book. This is a beautiful and essential book for anyone interested in modern and contemporary architecture.
Sophia Bennett, Manjit Thapp, The Bigger Picture: Women who Changed the Art World, Tate, 2019, hardback
Kathy Battista, New York, New Wave: The Legacy of Feminist Art in Emerging Practice, IB Tauris, 2019, paperback
Helena Reckitt, The Art of Feminism, Tate, 2019, hardback
Vivien Green Fryd, Against Our Will: Sexual Trauma in American Art Since 1970, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019, hardback
Nancy Princenthal, Unspeakable Acts: Women, Art, and Sexual Violence in the 1970s, Thames & Hudson, 2019, hardback
Rebecca Morrill (ed.), Great Women Artists, Phaidon, 2019, hardback
Jane Hall, Breaking Ground: Architecture by Women, Phaidon, 2019, hardback
Edit: To read my perspective on the interaction between female artists, feminism, the art market and art criticism/history, read my book “Women and Art: A Post-Feminist View”. Details given here.
alexanderadamsart 