Katie Baxter
When Katy Hessel walked into an art fair in 2015, she was struck by the fact that she could not find a single work by a female artist on display. She was disappointed and frustrated, but her experience shouldn’t come as a shock to any of us. Artistic institutions have been wilfully shunning women from their ranks since time immemorial.
Background
The old boy’s club of yore continues to reign supreme. A number of male critics are still standing by their guns, such as Brian Sewell who notoriously asserted that “only men are capable of aesthetic greatness.”
Research as recent as 2018 shows that 87% of represented artists at major US art galleries were male. In 1989, a group of feminist activists known as the Guerrilla Girls released their infamous poster asking: “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met museum? Less than 5% of the artists in the modern art sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female”.
“why are women so criminally overlooked in art past and present?”
But why is this the case? Why are women so criminally overlooked in art past and present? Is it an unfortunate fact that female artists just can’t match up to the genius of their male counterparts? Are the likes of Sewell right after all?
Ultimately, the answer is simple. When the responsibility of telling the story of art falls into the hands of male art historians alone, what we end up with is a distorted version of events. It presents a timeline which reveals a gaping vacuum where extraordinarily talented female artists should be.
Katy Hessel
Enter Katy Hessel. Upon being awakened to the vast inequality experienced by female artists now and throughout history, Hessel embarked on a seven-year-long mission to fill in some of the gaps in the story.
She champions the forgotten genius of overlooked female artists, and thus The Story of Art Without Men was born.
“felt like I was being snapped out of a sleepwalker’s trance”
Whilst reading Hessel’s eye-opening and fascinating corrective, I felt like I was being snapped out of a sleepwalker’s trance. Granted we’re all familiar with Georgia O’Keefe and Frida Kahlo (whose presence briefly graces the pages of this book), but how much do we know about the photography of transgender and cross dressing communities in Chile by Paz Errázuriz? Are we aware of the pottery of Native American artist Nampeyo?
When Hessel challenged me in the introduction of her book to name 20 female artists, I realised I’d fallen at the first hurdle. I’d been blindly accepting the story of art as told by white men without ever thinking to question it.
“her stories breathe life into the incredible stories of women”
The Story of Art Without Men glides seamlessly through history all the way back to the 1500s. Hessel’s narrative paints a glorious portrait with vibrant strokes of these inspiring women from centuries ago. Her writing breathes life into the incredible stories of women who pushed against the boundaries of their time so that her words almost seem to spring forth from the page.
Influential Art History
Hessel’s excitement is palpable as she tells the story of Sofonisba Anguissola’s Self-Portrait with Bernardino Campi, painted in 1550. Campi was Anguissola’s teacher, and at first glance, the painting seems to show Campi manoeuvring Anguissola as his subject. It appears as if he is pulling at her like a puppet on a string, exemplifying a classic dynamic between muse and painter.
However, in 1996, conservators discovered that Anguissola had painted herself with a second left hand: “upon closer inspection, we realise that it is not he who is dictating her appearance – but rather she is dictating his!” I found myself audibly gasping at Anguissola’s masterful sleight of hand (quite literally!), a trick played on the spectator to subvert gender convention.
“shines light on some of the most progressive forces in the art-historical canon”
Hessel shines a light on some of the most progressive forces in the art-historical canon, such as Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, whose striking photography deconstructs gender stereotypes. Cahun’s 1928 Self-Portrait in a Mirror is particularly captivating for its electrifyingly modern quality. There’s something undeniably David Bowie-esque about Cahun’s shaved platinum hair and oversized geometric coat. Cahun and Moore’s bold oeuvre “wrote queerness into art history”.
My experience of reading The Story of Art Without Men was a far cry from what I expected. The text isn’t just an encyclopaedia of influential female artists; it truly reads like a gripping tale, and it is utterly unputdownable. It’s a riveting narrative that unfolds cohesively, beginning with those who started “paving the way” hundreds of years ago and leading up to “the new masters” of the 2020s.
It’s a story that spotlights the evolution of the female consciousness in an overbearing patriarchal society.
With every turn of the page, we witness how women become more and more unapologetic in their art; expressing their opinions, celebrating their bodies, and taking ownership of their mediums.
Featured image courtesy of Katie Baxter
