Women in the Visual Arts
by Eric Tomlin and Rachel Millard
DEFINITION OF MODERN ART
Modernist art is defined as a reaction by artists to industrialization, urbanization, and nationalism. The combination of euphoria and alienation present at the end of the 19th century swept over the next few decades, heightened by both World Wars and the Great Depression. Art reflected this conflicted mind-set. Early 20th century artists challenged traditional notions of art and its purpose in society. This led to the rise of diverse movements from Fauvism to Dada, and several others.
ARTISTS
Meret Oppenheim: 1913-1985. Oppenheim went to Paris at 18 to become an artist. She was invited to exhibit with the Surrealists in 1933 by Giacometti and Jean Arp. Her piece, Object (Le Dejeuner en fourrure is a good example of the Surrealist goal to transform the familiar or mundane into the strange and fantastic.
Georgia O’Keeffe: 1887-1986. She is one of the greatest American painters of the 20th century. She ignored the styles of the European abstract movements. She is most known for her flower paintings. Many of her paintings are thought to be referencing the vagina; however, O’Keeffe declared that her work was aesthetic, not metaphoric.
Frida Kahlo: 1910-1954. Her paintings are characterized by vivid colors and her focus on the depiction of self. While her works may have formal qualities associated with Surrealism, Frida thought that her art was self-expression and that the similarities between her art and that of Surrealism are completely coincidental.
Augusta Savage: 1892-1962. Savage was an African American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance. She was the first black artist to be elected into the National Assoc. of Women Painters and Sculptors.
Dorothea Lange: 1895-1965. Lange was an American photojournalist, known mostly for the Depression-era photographs that were a part of her work for the Farm Security Administration. She was central to the development of documentary photography.
Anne Goldthwaite: 1969-1944. Goldthwaite was a regionalist painter of the American South. She is particularly known for her paintings of African Americans and is considered one of the South’s most important artists.
EUROPEAN ARTIST GROUPS
The Bloomsbury Group: This was an influential English group of writers, painters, and critics. The only female visual artist who was a member was Vanessa Bell.
Neue Künstlervereinigung München, 1909-1912 & Der Blaue Reiter, 1911-1914: The Blue Rider was a German avant-garde group, formed by artists from the Munich New Artist’s Association. Two female members were Natalia Goncharova and Marianne von Werefkin. Goncharova was a prominent member of the Russian avant-garde who co-founded Neo-Primitivism and was a leader of the Russian Futurists.
Society for Women Artists and Friends of Art: One of the few groups in Europe that centered on women. It was founded by the German expressionist Kathe Kollwitz.
Société des Artistes Indépendants: Founded in Paris, 1884. It follows the policy “No jury, no awards,” where there free participation and expression. Modernist women members include Alexandra Ekster, a founder of Art Deco, and Sonia Delaunay, a cubist and the first living female artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Louvre.
AMERICAN EXHIBITIONS AND ARTIST GROUPS
National Association of Women Painters & Sculptors: One of the oldest artist groups in the U.S., it was founded in 1889 due to the lack of opportunities for women artists.
Society of Independent Artists: Founded in 1917, tt was a juryless group that sponsored immense exhibitions. Their first show was in 1917 and featured 2500 works, of which 40% were made by women.
Salons of America: This was a branch off group from the Society of Independent Artists. Women made up about ½ of their artists for the 14 years the group was together.
Whitney Studio Club & the Downtown Gallery: As part of a response to the limited reception of female artists in earlier galleries, some women opened up art galleries of their own. Two major examples are Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s Whitney Studio Club, which opened in 1918, and Edith Halpert’s Downtown Gallery (1926).
The Armory Show, 1913: Officially known as The International Exhibition of Modern Art, this was a New York art exhibit considered to be one of the most significant moments of American art. It featured about 1250 works by over 300 artists; 16% of whom were women. The women associated with the show are usually referred to as “patrons”, although many actually had their own art in the show too.
CRITICISMS
Of Georgia O’Keeffe: Many of O’Keeffe’s critics hailed her art, but mixed into the accolades was an ever-present sexist notion. She was praised for her intuition and expression of emotions and beauty. Others were much harsher, giving no credit to her technique and singular style.
Of Women as a whole: Criticism in this era was largely sexist and ignorant of women artists’ capabilities. It focused on the passivity and internal nature of women. They focused on the artists as women first, and as artists second. Andre Breton considered women as a primal force of awe, a muse, completely unaffected by logic. He saw women as the main source of creative inspiration; however, it was not for women to express this force, rather it is for men to interpret and themselves express. Gloria Orenstein wrote that women surrealists had to fight against the confines of their own surrealist movement.
CONCLUSION
Though there are a handful of critics attempting to study their works, female modernists are still largely underrepresented in comparison to their male counterparts. As of 2007, the Museum of Modern Art had 400 works of art and only 14 of them are by women.
Works Cited
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