Great mistresses of art revealed
The great masters are well known but what happened to the great mistresses? Rachel CampbellJohnston tells the stories of 10 inspirational lives.
It all goes back to Aristotle. It was he who first put about the rumour that women were biologically incapable of creativity. The reputation stuck. Which is why a new BBC series, The Story of Women and Art, and an upcoming exhibition at the Fine Art Society, should prove thoughtprovoking. Entitled Annie Kevans: Women and the History of Art, the exhibition consists of some 30 portraits by the contemporary painter Annie Kevans of successful but frequently forgotten or overlooked female artists.
For centuries, only men had the money and contacts that allowed them to commission; the freedom to travel that helped them to broaden their minds; the education that prepared them to write the theories that set cultural agendas. They ran everything from the schools where the students learnt their skills to the guilds that conferred professional status.
Women meanwhile, corralled by social convention, were relegated for the most part to a subsidiary role. Even when given a break by an encouraging father, fellow artist or progressive academy, they never really attained parity. In the 18th century, for instance, an era in which artists were still largely judged by their mastery of the figure, it remained taboo for a woman to paint from the male nude. Yet the contemporary art world has now recognised the talents of any number of female practitioners. Here is a top 10 from across the centuries.
CLARICIA 13th century
Several medieval manuscripts were worked on by women, one of whom was the German illuminator Claricia. In a late 12th- century psalter, she creates a particularly lively portrait of herself swinging from and forming the curly tail of a capital letter Q. Dressed in a slim- fitting robe and with long free- flowing hair, Claricia would appear to have been not a nun from the Augsburg convent for which the manuscript was made, but rather a well- born young lady sent there for schooling. As the Middle Ages progressed, miniature painting was increasingly regarded as a becoming accomplishment for educated women.
PROPERZIA DE’ ROSSI c 1490- 1530
Properzia de’ Rossi of Bologna who, according to Giorgio Vasari, was ‘‘ very beautiful’’ and ‘‘ played and sang better than any other woman of the city’’, was also the first professional female sculptor of the Renaissance. Originally praised for her skill at carving fruit stones, she went on to sculpt portrait busts and, eventually, to beat her male rivals for church commissions. However, tormented by unrequited love for a nobleman, she apparently sickened and died penniless. Vasari draws the conclusion that women – even great artisans – cannot escape their female nature.
SOFONISBA ANGUISSOLA c 1532- 1625
The first lady of the Italian Renaissance, Sofonisba Anguissola was arguably the first female artist to gain an international reputation. Her alert, lively portraits, so attentive to character and decorative intricacy, earned enormous respect – not least in Madrid where, in her mid- twenties, she became official court painter. Even Michelangelo was impressed. He began sending her sketches to copy and became her informal tutor. She opened the way for other women to pursue artistic careers.
ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI 1593- c 1652
As a
teenager,
this
eldest
daughter
of a Tuscan painter was raped by the artist her father had chosen to be her tutor. Worse, the veracity of her court testimony was tested by thumbscrews. Little wonder that she went on to turn art into a weapon against the bullying patriarchy. Her biblical paintings of Judith slaying the predatory general Holofernes have all the blood- spurting vividness of the Baroque at its best.
LOUISE MOILLON 1610- 1696
A 17th- century still- life painter who began selling her pictures at the age of 10, Moillon could capture the texture of a fruit skin, a water droplet’s reflections, a cloth’s surface detail or a basket’s plaited weave with such superlative skill that she was accepted as a member of the French Royal Academy despite its firm belief that the genre in which she worked didn’t matter.
ANGELICA KAUFFMANN 1741- 1807
By the time this daughter of a Swiss muralist was a teenager she was taking portrait commissions from bishops and noblemen. Travelling to Britain, she caught the eye of Sir Joshua Reynolds. He nicknamed her Miss Angel and painted her portrait – a compliment she returned. It was probably owing to his good offices that she became one of London’s most soughtafter portraitists and, in 1769, was appointed a founding member ( the only woman apart from Mary Moser) of the British Royal Academy, becoming a prolific contributor to its annual show.
ANNE SEYMOUR DAMER 1749- 1828
Developing a youthful interest in art under the auspices of her guardian Horace Walpole, this aristocratic portrait sculptor received commissions from George III and Napoleon. Known for her theatrical personality, her preference for wearing male clothing and for entering ( even after her marriage to an earl) into demonstrative friendships with other women, she was nonetheless so serious about her art that she asked to be buried with her sculpting tools and apron as well as the ashes of her favourite dog.
ELISABETH VIGEE LE BRUN 1755- 1842
The most significant female painter of the 18th century, the Parisian Vigee Le Brun was so determined to work it’s said that she remained at her canvas even through her labour pains. When she was young, her studio was seized by the authorities because she had practised without a licence. But still she went on to paint dozens of flamboyant Rococo portraits of Marie Antoinette, and in 1783 the French Academie was finally persuaded, under royal pressure, to accept her as a member.
SUZANNE VALADON 1865- 1938
Despite being the first woman painter admitted into the Societe Nationale des Beaux- Arts, Suzanne Valadon, an erstwhile acrobat whose circus career had ended with a fall from a trapeze, is probably better known as the model for Toulouse- Lautrec and Renoir, and the mother of Maurice Utrillo, than as a painter in her own right. But Degas recognised the vibrant power of her work and admired the bold candour of her nudes. He bought her paintings and encouraged her.
LOUISE BOURGEOIS 1911- 2010
For most of her life, Louise Bourgeois was dismissed as a peripheral figure and it was only in the 1980s, after New York’s MoMA had offered her a retrospective, that the labyrinthine inner world of this last great surrealist was revealed.
Bourgeois – nicknamed the Spiderwoman ( after her now world- famous sculpture Maman) – had to wait until she was a septuagenarian for her unnervingly subversive and profoundly autobiographical vision to be finally recognised.
Carl Donnelly finds his material for his standup comedy from crazy situations he often finds himself in and he will be open for inspiration when he is in Palmerston North tomorrow.
Donnelly will be travelling here in a mini- van packed with funny people for the 2Degrees Comedy Convoy at The Regent so the opportunity for antics are promising. As part of the 2014 NZ International Comedy Festival, the convoy includes Paul Ego, from TV3’ s 7 days, leading the fleet, Kiwis Justine Smith and Jarred Fell and Brit Markus Birdman, who Donnelly has worked with before.
‘‘ We get on pretty well and have known each other for a while,’’ says Donnelly. ‘‘ It’s good to have someone that you know you get along with. Sometimes I go overseas and you are stuck with people that you just don’t gel with and it is awful. I have met a few of the Convoy guys so it should be all good.’’
The comedians all have different styles and approaches and Donnelly says he is a terrible liar, so his material is all true, conversational and quite silly.
‘‘ I tend to waffle on about stuff that I’ve been up to, I don’t dress it up and I am as honest as possible.
‘‘ My material is not massively written. I just tell it as stuff that happened and see if it’s funny enough and build it into a routine. I usually do something stupid enough to make it to the stage at least once a month. I am quite reckless, so things happen. Sometimes not a lot happens but then I mine the past – I had a wild childhood and teenage years so that is useful.’’
Born in Tooting, South London, Donnelly dropped out of university after 21⁄ months production.
‘‘ I wasn’t feeling university, I was pretty precocious and it just wasn’t moving fast enough for me and so I went and worked in bars and then in an office in accounts because I was good at maths and I needed money to get by. So, yeah, I was a depressed office worker.’’
Inspiration and a way out came when he was 21 and a friend took him to see a comedy show featuring Addy van der Borg in a small South London club.
‘‘ I had never seen comedy
Carl Donnelly is heading Palmerston North’s way.
of
studying
film
before and I thought it was brilliant. I had this weird revelation which changed everything,’’ says Donnelly. ‘‘ I knew what I wanted to do.’’
He has been on the stand- up comedy circuit ever since and won a host of awards early on in his career, including the Laughing Horse New Act of the Year and the Chortle Best Newcomer Award. He became a regular at all of the finest comedy clubs in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
A regular at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Donnelly was nominated for Best Show in the