‘There is no such thing as a woman artist. There are only two kinds of artist- bad and good.’
The Excursion of Nausicaa by Ethel Walker, 1920
Cumulating in this spectacular piece by Ethel Walker, ‘Now You See Us’ is Tate Britain’s enjoyable but slightly-too-late attempt at reconciling with art history’s murky past. Focussing on ‘Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920’, the show’s aim seems to be to dust off their spotlight and shine it on forgotten female artists. A little slow off the mark, thought, as the art world’s fascination with the plight of women artists is a few years old now. Though it does remain a hot topic, is this just too little too late?
Katy Hessel’s 2019 podcast and 2022 book ‘The Story of Art Without Men’ marked the rebirth of the art world’s fascination with female artists. Half a decade later, Tate is jumping on the bandwagon.
Beginning the exhibition with Artemisia Gentileschi felt a little predictable. Not due to any fault of the artist- she was a revolutionary baroque painter. Her work is considered brilliantly feminist, featuring powerful female protagonists. I just feel that she is so often used as the face of female artists. Many people have now heard of her, and she’s had exhibitions of her own here in London. If Tate’s goal was to highlight unknown artists, including her wasn’t really necessary.
Despite doubts about the premise of the exhibition, I did really enjoy it. It had a good flow, with meaningful writing on the wall that would have been useful for those who don’t know the subject so well. Despite being organised chronologically, though, there was a separate room for paintings of flowers, which didn’t make much sense. Useful perhaps to highlight how women were forced into ‘lesser’ decorative forms of art like still life, this room was the only part of the exhibition that didn’t seem logical. It was nice to see such a large expanse of history covered; this allowed progression for women (or lack of) to be really clear. Other than a small foray into photography and a few sculptures, the work on display was entirely paintings. I’m not complaining because I love paintings, but it might have been interesting to see a wider variety of media on show. Many women were limited to working in textiles, for example, so why was this not included?
All visitors seemed highly engaged in the show. It was clearly making people stop and think. The exhibition’s security guard even took a break from duty to look long and hard at this photo of the class of 1905 at the Slade School of Art, populated almost entirely by women.
Slade School of Fine Art, Class of 1905
The calibre of art on show was brilliant. A large number of the works focussed on women, giving them an autobiographic quality and highlighting the strength of character of all the artists. Some of my favourite paintings of women were by Angelica Kauffman, whose work featured in its own exhibition at the Royal Academy earlier this year.
Ariadne Abandoned by Theseus, 1774 by Angelica Kauffman
The ‘Victorian’ room was an exciting one to walk into, boasting the first sculptures in the exhibition, as well as more diverse subjects like female nudes and military paintings. The introduction of female nudes in this era is testament to changing times, with some women being allowed in the life drawing room for the first time. The resulting paintings of female nudes feel distinctly rebellious.
One artist I particularly enjoyed seeing was Victorian painter Emily Osborne, whose work I instantly recognised from the walls of Manchester Art Gallery. In Manchester her work sits amongst all the rest and doesn’t have its own ‘Female’ badge of honour. This really got me thinking. Seeing her work in two very different contexts, it was more powerful in Manchester Art Gallery. I took notice of her when realising she was one of the few female artists in the room, and her work bore absolutely no differentiation to that of the men. This made it that much more compelling for me. This element of comparison is lost when shown with only female artists. Seeing very few women in a room of paintings is arguably more poignant in communicating the plight of female artists. By giving them their own exhibition there is no point of comparison. It would have been better to show a mix of art by men and by women, for viewers to see for themselves the differences (or lack of.) Art history has happened; this exhibition doesn’t reconcile or change the challenges faced my women artists.
Grouping artists together on gender feels a little simplistic. The only commonality of the work was that it was made by a woman. By grouping these works it is suggesting that female artwork is different. By giving women artists their own categories, books and exhibitions, we mark them as separate. There are ‘Artists’ and ‘Women Artists.’ We don’t call male artists ‘Male Artists.’ History has taught, unfortunately, that ‘separate but equal’ simply doesn’t exist. The separated group always suffers inferiority. By having these exhibitions, are we inadvertently fuelling the problem? We can only learn from history’s mistakes, and do better for women in the future.
Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?
The title of Linda Nochlin’s infamous article is as relevant now as in 1971 when it first appeared on the pages of ARTnews. The subjects discussed in the text are key to critically viewing the exhibition. Arguing entirely for the weight of circumstances in so called ‘great’ artistic achievement, Nochlin highlights societal and institutional inequalities and how these prevented women from persuing art. Many of the women in Tate’s exhibition were only able to be artists because they were from wealthy backgrounds or had artist fathers. Issues of class and race also come into play. Why have there been no great Black artists? Or queer artists? Or artists from poverty? These groups, as well as women, have never been on equal footing with the white-middle-class-man. The difficulty women face in the art world is a reflection of the real world. Until we address society’s status quo as a whole, we can’t expect the art world to change. With all this in mind, the achievements of the historical artists in the exhibition feel all the more remarkable.
Back to Ethel Walker’s ‘The Excursion of Nausicaa’. Dominating the final room of the exhibition, and it really packed a punch; dynamic, vibrant and enormous, it’s one of my new favourite paintings. A deeper look proves it to be a feminist triumph, too. It is based around a story from The Odyssey, where a young princess leads her maids to a river to bathe and wash laundry. Unlike previous painted depictions of the tale, however, Walker’s breaks with tradition by being totally female-centred. Other paintings give male king Odysseus a central role; in Walker’s, it’s the women. Odysseus is merely a small peeping figure in the back left corner. This is a celebration of women and womanhood.
The Excursion of Nausicaa by Ethel Walker, 1920
I wonder how Ethel Walker would have felt about being in this exhibition of women artists, given that she famously proclaimed:
‘There is no such thing as a woman artist. There are only two kinds of artist- bad and good.’
Straight from one of the stars of their show, this sums up the flaws and contradictory nature of Tate’s ‘Now You See Us.’
Visit ‘Now You See Us’ at Tate Britain until 13th October. I suggest viewing with Ethel Walker’s philosophy in mind.
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