A New Set of Eyes

1. A New Set of Eyes Women and Art

2. 3 centuries of Art by a Lady • No names beside their art just a plate that read “By a Lady” • The first generation of women artists worked gilding statues and painting altars and embroidering tapestries • In 1690 a nun painted Enfant Jesus and women began to paint on canvas • With no access to art training they had to learn by copying the art of others

3. Women were introduced to the polite arts to occupy their leisure hours and attract suitors • Art is what men produced • Most women artists went out of their way to paint the less perfect in positive terms • They painted the indigenous people of Canada capturing their nobleness and closeness to nature an aspect of their character overlooked by the male artists. • Through their art people began to see the natives as civilized

4. A Place in History? • Historians and critics have typically considered art by women according to the number of works they published, sold, or had hanging on gallery walls but since those institutions are dominated by males woman artists did not score well • Consider your textbook Female artists have been active in the Canadian and American art world for 3 centuries how many of them are mentioned?

5. Making History • By the 1900’s women became promoters, educators and producers of art yet still they were ignored • To prove their caliber many female artists and educators pursued art careers in France where there were more readily accepted • The women returned schooled in Impressionism and placed more emphasis on the expressive possibilities of art rather than subject matter • Art generated by Canadians like Mary Riter Hamilton found favour abroad but not in Canada where a woman’s place was in the home • “The chief obstacle to a woman’s success is that she should could never have a wife”

6. Shorter skirts, cigarettes,mechanical labour saving devices (washing machines) and new attitudes regarding child rearing gave women a new image of themselves • The belief that art was the handmaiden of industry meant that vast sums of money were provided to expand art education even for women • In the 1930’s art allowed people to escape from the harsh realities of the depression

7. Making their Mark • In 1937 The Royal Canadian Academy of Art elected 2 women artists • More galleries gave women an opportunity to show their work • In order to fit in some women painted like the men (Group of 7) • Some women began to travel beyond the city limits and like Emily Carr offered an alternative view

8. Portraiture • Portraits allowed the artist to explore the psychological complexity of the sitter • Women became subjects of art rather than objects of art

9. Mary Cassat (1845-1926)Studied in France American Impressionist • Her father said he’d rather see her dead than as an artist. • Society required a chaperone because she was unmarried • A very good friend of Degas • Goodnight Hug was her first mother-child work completed after she met Degas • Mary Cassatt’s paintings of women and children prompted some Canadian Artists to paint the subject of maternite

10. Following a leader Cassatt and Degas In order to be accepted women often copied male art themes and styles

11. Rody Courtice and Yvonne Houser vs Lauren Harris Their bogus sketches actually attracted buyers

12. Therese Joyce-Gagnon vs Picasso Women of Banff Updating the women of the streetThe outcasts of today

13. Celeste Rehm vs Matisse Women are treated like dogs. Art can raise awareness about a variety of destructive forces that need to be changed.

14. Social JusticePhotography by Dorothea Lange • Many artists shy away from the social, political or economic turmoil of society • Women are more likely to comment indirectly on social issues

15. Kathe Kollwitz ………………..German(1867-1945)sculptor,printmaker………………..Art for social justice • She valued herself more as an artist than a wife • She drew women and children who waited at her husband’s free clinic • Her posters supported the feminist movement, abortion, homosexuality and spoke out against child labour

16. She was passionately anti-war losing a son in WW1 • She was against the Nazi’s so her art was banned and their clinic was closed. • She carried a vial of poison to drink incase she was caught by the Gestapo

17. One day seven years ago I found myself saying to myself–I can’t live where I want to–I can’t go where I want to go–I can’t do what I want to–I can’t even say what I want to–...I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to. • Georgia O’Keeffe, 1923

18. Georgia O'Keeffe American, 1887-1986 • The subject of several plays, • a museum devoted to her work • one of her paintings reproduced on a postage stamp, • Georgia O'Keeffe is the most famous American woman artist and an important pioneering modernist.

19. Georgia’s main subject was bleached animal bones • She saw skulls as lively and not connected with death • Her series of calla lilies sold for the highest sum ever paid to a living artist. • Summer Days was one of her favourite pieces

20. Self Portrait with Monkey is owned by Madonna • Frida Kahlo Mexican, 1907-1954From 1926 until her death, the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo created striking, often shocking, images that reflected her turbulent life. • She had polio as a child and was in a severe bus accident where she was pierced by an iron handrail • She wanted children but her frail body would not allow them so instead she had monkeys, turkeys and parrots

21. Frida Kahlo (Mexican, 1907-1954)Self-Portrait Dedicated to Leon Trotsky • This self-portrait shows the same Frida Kahlo seen in numerous photographs: intense, with broad, expressive eyebrows and a fondness for traditional Mexican garb. • it omits the overt symbolism and sometimes-harrowing depictions of her medical history featured in many other self-portraits. • She found it easy to do self portraits because she was bedridden most of the time

22. Singing their Song 1992 • Elizabeth Catlett American, b. 1915For 60 years, Elizabeth Catlett has been producing politically powerful art in both the United States and her adopted country of Mexico. • Refused admission to Carnegie Institute of Technology because of her race, • Catlett enrolled at Howard University, She was graduated with honors in 1937. • She has spent her life creating images that champion poor and working people of all colors.

23. Hollis Sigler (American, 1948-2001)She Was Tired of Filling Her Heart with Hopeless Dreams1982 • Since 1975 this Chicago artist created psychologically complex narrative paintings, drawings, and prints grounded in personal experience. • Adopting a faux naif style, the childlike look of her art as a reaction against what she saw as a patriarchal culture that historically treated women as little more than children. • From its inception, this style was also a means of conveying difficult emotional content in a way that viewers could easily understand.

24. The Canadians

25. Emily Carr • Florence McGillivray • Prudence Heward

26. Jana Sterbak 1989 • Liz Magor 1979 • Colette Whitten 1977

27. Kenojouak, "My Mother, Myself", Stoneprint, Handmade dyed Kozo, • Kenojuak is the most revered Inuit artist living in Canada today. Her imaginative drawings, prints and carvings are sought the world over and reflect her experiences and life in the North. • While her imagery is varied, she is best known for her eloquently designed animals and birds, especially the Owl.

28. Daphne Odjig • Born and raised on Manitoulin Island, Daphne Odjig has strong traditional roots in her Native culture (she is Potawatomi, Odawa, and English) and is proud of the artistic tradition of her ancestors

29. The New Artists Who to look for in Galleries

30. Nancy SperoAmerican b. 1926 • A feminist artist who layers visual images and written language • Speros work is to be seen as a re-interpretation of history of women.

31. Rebecca Horn (1944) is one of the most illustrious contemporary German artists. • She combines a variety of media: video, performance, installation, and sculpture • The fundamental topic of her work is human hypersensitivity, emotionality, obsessions, and fears. • In her work Horn conducts a multi-layer discourse on Nature, Culture, and Technology issues. • She frequently uses, as the setting for her projects, places marked historically or emotionally in some specific way

32. CARRIE MAE WEEMS (Photographer/Visual Artist) • Carrie Mae Weems has unequivocally articulated her artistic goals: "Let me say that my primary concern in art, as in politics, is with the status and place of Afro-Americans in our country.“ • Her work serves to "absorb, disarm and ultimately engage in dialogue all but the most intractable bigots" (Washington Post).

33. Calle's work is very much tied up with a process. Her art unfolds as she goes through each stage of preparation and execution. • The form of the final product - the thing which the gallery viewer actually sees - is the least significant part. • "She also imposes elements of her own life onto public places creating a personal narrative where she is both author and character. SOPHIE CALLE – b. France 1953. Lives and works in Paris

34. Sorry Sweetie. You won’t get a job because most art departments don’t hire women. Men dominate almost every art department in the U.S. Guerrilla Girls. Established 1985, still going strong in the 21st Century!

35. By a Lady • Woman artists still struggle for respect today • In order to make a statement about social justice some of their art is not very ladylike • Art can be a career for women but they must be ready to be their own promoter • The tradition of women’s art is far richer than we ever imagined.