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How six extraordinary women artists of the twentieth century reframed the narrative through their art and lives.
When a woman makes art, what does she see? When she picks up her brush and looks in the mirror? When she takes off her clothes and paints herself naked? Or when she raises her camera and turns it towards another woman, a model naked there in front of her? And how is she seen when she turns to face the men, the artists, her colleagues, her friends, her lovers?
A Woman's Eye, Her Art looks back to the lives and art of European modernist women who recast the ways in which women's bodies could be seen – from the self-portraits of Paula Modersohn-Becker, to the Surrealist Claude Cahun who exposed the masquerades of femininity, to the radical nudes of photo-artists Lee Miller and Dora Maar. Alongside them in Paris during the first decades of the twentieth century were many artist-women, their friends and colleagues, including Clara Westhoff-Rilke and Gabriele Münter, Leonora Carrington and Meret Oppenheim. In this book, Drusilla Modjeska examines why these women still matter and, in the vein of her seminal and bestselling work Stravinsky's Lunch, connects their past to our present.
This beautiful book, richly illustrated and elegantly written is about the spirit it took for these artist-women to step out on that path, and the courage it took to stay there. It is the story of what they saw, and how they were seen as they crashed against the hypocrisies that are embedded deep in the structures of society. And it is about hard-fought freedoms as in their different ways they changed the landscape of the art world and reframed the narrative.
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How six extraordinary women artists of the twentieth century reframed the narrative through their art and lives.
When a woman makes art, what does she see? When she picks up her brush and looks in the mirror? When she takes off her clothes and paints herself naked? Or when she raises her camera and turns it towards another woman, a model naked there in front of her? And how is she seen when she turns to face the men, the artists, her colleagues, her friends, her lovers?
A Woman's Eye, Her Art looks back to the lives and art of European modernist women who recast the ways in which women's bodies could be seen – from the self-portraits of Paula Modersohn-Becker, to the Surrealist Claude Cahun who exposed the masquerades of femininity, to the radical nudes of photo-artists Lee Miller and Dora Maar. Alongside them in Paris during the first decades of the twentieth century were many artist-women, their friends and colleagues, including Clara Westhoff-Rilke and Gabriele Münter, Leonora Carrington and Meret Oppenheim. In this book, Drusilla Modjeska examines why these women still matter and, in the vein of her seminal and bestselling work Stravinsky's Lunch, connects their past to our present.
This beautiful book, richly illustrated and elegantly written is about the spirit it took for these artist-women to step out on that path, and the courage it took to stay there. It is the story of what they saw, and how they were seen as they crashed against the hypocrisies that are embedded deep in the structures of society. And it is about hard-fought freedoms as in their different ways they changed the landscape of the art world and reframed the narrative.
I’ve known about Drusilla Modjeska’s new book from its beginnings. I travelled to Germany with the author while she did research, I read early drafts, I’m one of the dedicatees. I thought I knew this book, but reading the published version has been an entirely new and wonderful experience for me. There’s an intimacy to A Woman’s Eye, Her Art. Drusilla Modjeska takes the reader with her, on her journey of discovery, as she brings to life several of the long-neglected women artists of the first half of the 20th century.
The art of that time was defined in masculine terms and valued through a masculine gaze; indeed, creativity itself was considered to be the domain of men. We all know the names: Picasso, Man Ray, Breton, Rilke, Kandinsky. However, until recently, the women artists in A Woman’s Eye, Her Art, if they were mentioned at all, were as muses/appendages to their famous male partners. There’s Dora Maar (Picasso), Lee Miller (Man Ray), Clara Westhoff (Rilke), Gabriele Münter (Kandinsky), just to name a few of the artists in A Woman’s Eye, Her Art. Modjeska ‘reframe[s] the narrative through [the] art and life’ of these women and, in addition, by drawing on the work of contemporary artists like Julie Rrap and Chantal Joffe reveals their radicalism, significance and their enduring influence.
There’s a novelistic feel to A Woman’s Eye, Her Art as Modjeska takes us into the places where the women worked, to erotically charged summer holidays in the south of France, as she portrays the problems of being an artist/mother/wife. We see the horrors of Buchenwald and Dachau through the eyes and camera of Lee Miller, and marvel at the queerness – such queerness! – of Claude Cahun. And then there’s the sumptuous production itself: gorgeous paper, wide margins and an abundance of illustrations. In every respect, Drusilla Modjeska’s A Woman’s Eye, Her Art is a pleasure to read.
Andrea Goldsmith is a friend of Readings.
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