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.