A new exhibition at Tate Britain shines a spotlight on female artists whose work was once overshadowed. Amanda Hodges tells us more
Susannah and the Elders, c.1638-1640
HISTORY HAS SHOWN that women have often had to fight hard within the artistic sphere, as in many other areas, to gain both credibility and a visible platform to fully express their voices.
Tate Britain’s new exhibition, Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920 traces this convoluted arc of women’s passage towards professional validation. It encompasses four centuries of work, beginning with Tudor miniatures (which mark the first record of women working professionally) and ending just after the First World War, when huge societal shifts were beginning to offer women fresh possibilities, edging towards those comparable to male contemporaries. As 20th-century American painter Isabel Bishop once expounded, “I didn’t want to be a woman artist. I just wanted to be an artist.”
Tabitha Barber, the exhibition’s curator says, “The period chosen certainly doesn’t imply that all of women artist’s problems were resolved after 1920, but it does represent a watershed moment for women being able to operate as professionals.” For her, Now You See Us “is an incredibly timely exhibition. We’ve seen a growth in re-examining the work of women artists since the 60s and 70s, but in recent years this is a subject that’s really entered public discourse.” She expands upon the event’s genesis, saying, “The title is a reference to the long journeys that these women artists took. The exhibition will show that women have been working as professional artists in Britain for hundreds of years, but many have often been overlooked or forgotten. It’s a chance to re-examine their legacies, the hurdles they faced, and the important work they created.” ▸ The scope on offer here is admirably broad: over 200 works encompass oils, pastels, sculpture and ‘needlepainting’ and there are over 100 artists on display, celebrated names such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Angelica Kauffman and Gwen John appearing alongside others who are lesser known. With disparate careers and with many campaigning for equal access to training and professional membership, the range of genres tackled by these women is truly comprehensive; there are those deemed to be working within the ‘feminine’ domain, painting domestic scenes and watercolours, whilst others encroach on what was then percei
