On the Cover

Ogura Yuki
Young Woman (Musume) (1951)
nihonga on paper, 54 3/4" x 43 3/4".
The Museum of Modern Art, Shiga.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ONE POINT PERSPECTIVE

By Elsa Honig Fine

PORTRAITS

The Figure Paintings of Ogura Yuki: The Merging of East and West

By Nanako Yamada

Evelyn Beatrice Longman: Establishing a Career in Public Sculpture

By Margaret Samu

The Art of Joy Hester: "In Defence of Unwritten History"

By Denise Mimmocchi

ISSUES AND INSIGHTS

Frida Kahlo's Spiritual World: The Influence of Mexican Retablo and Ex-voto Paintings on Her Art

By María A. Castro-Sethness

Frida Kahlo's Still Lifes: "I paint flowers so they will not die"

By Salomon Grimberg

REVIEWS

Orientalism's Interlocutors: Painting, Architecture, Photography

edited by Jill Beaulieu and Mary Roberts

Reviewed by Linnea S. Dietrich

An Imperial Collection: Women Artists from the State Hermitage Museum

edited by Jordana Pomeroy, Rosalind P. Blakesley, Vladimir Yu. Matveyev, and Elizaveta P. Renne

Reviewed by Alison Hilton

Difficult Subjects: Working Women and Visual Culture, Britain 1880-1914

by Kristina Huneault

Reviewed by Cheryl Buckley

Regionalism and Reform, Art and Class Foundation in Antebellum Cincinnati

by Wendy Jean Katz

Reviewed by Pamela H. Simpson

Camille Claudel: A Life

by Odile Ayral-Clause

Reviewed by Patricia Mathews

Anni Albers and Ancient American Textiles: From Bauhaus to Black Mountain

by Virginia Gardner Troy

Reviewed by Sigrid Wortmann Weltge

The Gág Family: German-Bohemian Artists in America

by Julie L'Enfant

Reviewed by Betsy Fahlman

Spirit Taking Form: Making a Spiritual Practice of Making Art

by Nancy Azara

Reviewed by Kyra Belán

Polly Apfelbaum

edited by Claudia Gould

Reviewed by Robin Rice

Art/Women/California 1950-2000: Parallels and Intersections

edited by Diana Burgess Fuller and Daniela Salvioni

Reviewed by Charlotte S. Rubinstein

One Point Perspective

Betsy Fahlman asked me recently if WAJ would be interested in an article about Muriel Draper, an interwar Salon host painted by Romaine Brooks and caricatured by Peggy Bacon. "She led a fascinating life," remarked Fahlman, "but is a only a footnote to art history." My response: "Most of the artists we document are footnotes. It's WAJ's job to put them in the text." Among those artists Fahlman has put in the text are the New Deal muralist Louise Emerson Rönnebeck (Fall '01/Winter '02), and women art students at Yale between 1869 and 1913 (Spring/Summer '91). In this issue Fahlman reviews Julie L'Enfant's book about the Gág family of artists, the most renowned of whom is Wanda, revealing the family roots of creativity.

Frida Kahlo was not even a footnote in most of the surveys of women artists published during the 1970s. She is not mentioned by Eleanor Tufts (1974), Hugo Munsterberg (1975), or Ann Sutherland Harris and Linda Nochlin (1976), nor by Wendy Slatkin as late as 1985. I was astonished to find her in the index of my Women and Art (1978). On page 201, a sentence in the section on Louise Nevelson begins: "She soon met the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera and his wife the Surrealist painter Frida Kahlo.…" Germaine Greer's (1979) index lists "Kahlo (later Rivera), Frida," referring the reader to two short paragraphs and a reproduction. Only Karen Peterson and J.J. Wilson (1976), in their section on the Surrealists, proclaim her significance with five reproductions and a full page of text.

It was not until the 1983 publication of Hayden Herrera's biography of Kahlo that the artist began to achieve iconic status. Since 1984, beginning with Janet Kaplan's review of that biography, WAJ has reviewed seventeen books about Kahlo and published five articles on various aspects of her life and work. In this issue we add two more articles: one on the influence of Mexican retablo and ex-voto paintings on her art, by Maria Castro-Sethness, and the other on her still lifes, by Salomon Grimberg. Castro-Sethness writes that Kahlo's art is rooted in the Mexican soul and "has a place in the religious tradition of Mexican art." Kahlo created about 30 still lifes and some 80 self-portraits. Although less well known, the still lifes, according or Grimberg, "are as reflective of her internal reality as are her self-portraits," and "often read like pages in a diary."

Neither Ogura Yuki (1895-2000) nor Joy Hester (1920-60) have to be written into the art history texts of their native countries, Japan and Australia, respectively. A much honored artist, Yuki painted and exhibited until her death age 105. Her figure paintings, like the one on the front cover, merge East and West, observes author Nanako Yamada. Even though Hester lived a brief 40 years, she made a major contribution to Australian modernism, writes Denise Mimmocchi. Much of the literature on Hester has focused on her "irregular" life choices; the author here establishes the importance of her art.

Although Evelyn Beatrice Longman (1874-1959) is now a footnote in the history of American sculpture, she achieved international renown in 1915 when she created the iconic The Genius of Electricity for the top of the AT&T building in Manhattan. She chose to work in the arena of public sculpture and competed successfully with men to win important commissions and remuneration. "The ascendancy of modernism has all but obscured the work of Longman and her contemporaries," writes Margaret Samu, "but she helped expand society's vision about what a woman could accomplish."

The artists WAJ elevates from footnote status all left paper trails, their lives and works well documented during their lifetimes, available for the digging. Many, as I have suggested before, had to be extricated from the life and work of their male partners, and their work continues to be examined anew. Camille Claudel, for example, had been widely recognized as Rodin's "muse and mistress." (One of the first articles in English on Claudel was published in WAJ, in Spring/Summer '85.) In her biography of the sculptor, Odile Ayral-Clause has made good use of newly discovered letters between Claudel and Rodin, which confirm her importance "as creative spark for his…work," reports reviewer Patricia Mathews. Anni Albers is now as recognized as her husband Josef, and two reviews of books about her work have been published previously in WAJ (Spring/Summer '86; Spring/Summer '01). Here Virginia Troy examines the influence of ancient American textiles on her art in a book of impeccable scholarship, writes reviewer Sigrid Weltge.

Some artists whose works are reproduced in the journal, even in color, do not get listed in the WAJ index. They are not the main protagonists of the text under review; rather, their work is used to illustrate an idea, or they are part of a group exhibition. Yet their life and art need to be introduced to a wide readership. Some were quite adventurous. Henriette Browne, whose 1861 painting of a Turkish interior accompanies Linnea Dietrich's review of Orientalism's Interlocutors (edited by Jill Beaulieu and Mary Roberts), actually visited a harem. She "represented the harem as a space of social interaction among women rather than a space of sexual pleasure for men," writes Dietrich. Among the adventurous European women artists who went to Russia during the 18th and 19th centuries to seek fame and fortune was Christina Robertson, whose elegant mid-19th century portraits of the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna accompany Alison Hilton's review of An Imperial Collection: Women Artists form the State Hermitage Museum. Hilton writes that the "catalogue, as much as the exhibition itself, produces an effect of a richly woven tapestry of cultural experience."

Kristina Huneault begins Difficult Subjects: Working Women and Visual Culture in Britain, 1880-1914 with a 1907 image of a Glasgow cotton mill worker painted by Sylvia Pankhurst. She "cut a swath through the sexualized vision of femininity," and "painted women workers worn out by relentless industrial labor, poor living conditions, and large families," adds reviewer Cheryl Buckley. (Pankhurst eventually abandoned her art to join the suffrage campaign along with her mother Enmmeline and sister Christobel.)

An entire chapter in Wendy Katz's study of art and class in antebellum Cincinnati is devoted to Lilly Martin Spencer, whose Shake Hands? (1854) illustrates Pam Simpson's review. Although the painting may be familiar to most WAJ readers, Katz's lengthy discussion of the period's etiquette books contextualizes the image and gives it new meaning.

A subscriber, on her renewal form, asked why we publish so many articles on obscure, dead artists (because they are what is submitted), requesting more material on contemporary artists. We hope she is pleased with the reviews of Polly Apfelbaum's (b. 1955) first museum survey at Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art; Nancy Azara's (b. 1939) personal spiritual journey, Spirit Taking Form; and Art/Women/California 1960-2000, a groundbreaking exhibition and catalogue of art representing the state's various ethnic groups.

This issue marks WAJ's 25th anniversary, and it is late. For the 20th anniversary issue, we splurged with eight color pages (now a regular feature). With my several hospitalizations during the summer and early fall, and the death of the associate editor's father in August, we are pleased to have our 50th issue finally on its way.

About Woman's Art Journal

Published semiannually—May and November—since 1980, Woman's Art Journal continues to represent the interests of women and art worldwide. Our articles and reviews cover all areas of women in the visual arts, from antiquity to the present day. Each issue presents current research on a variety of topics, featuring "portraits" of women artists, "issues and insights," and discerning reviews of recent books and exhibition catalogues. Each article is well researched and clearly written. Our authors are international scholars in their fields. A typical 60-page issue contains 20-25 color plates and 25-35 black-and-white illustrations.

WAJ is indexed on all major art indexes and bibliographies, and is used as a supplementary text in many university courses on women and art. The journal is found in university and major libraries worldwide and in selected museum bookshops, including the Metropolitan (New York), Philadelphia, and Nelson-Atkins (Kansas City), and the National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington, D.C.).

WAJ is available by subscription.

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Contact

Elsa Honig Fine, Editor and Publisher
Woman's Art Journal
1711 Harris Road
Laverock, PA 19038
waj@womansartjournal.org

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