On the Cover
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard
Self-Portrait with Two Pupils (1785)
oil on canvas, 83" x 59½".
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ONE POINT PERSPECTIVE
By Elsa Honig Fine
ISSUES AND INSIGHTS
ROYAL "MATRONAGE" OFWOMEN ARTISTS IN THE LATE-18TH-CENTURY
By Heidi A. Strobel
DONATELLO'S MARY MAGDALEN: A Model of Courage and Survival
By Martha Levine Dunkelman
PORTRAITS
ALICE STALLKNECHT: Every Woman to Her Trade
By Ingrid A. Steffensen and Patricia Likos Ricci
AURORA REYES'S ATAQUE A LA MAESTRA RURAL: The First Mural Created by a Mexican Female Artist
By Dina Comisarenco Mirkin
CHARLEY TOOROP
By Virginia Pitts Rembert
THE GREAT DRAPER WOMAN: Muriel Draper and the Art of the Salon
By Betsy Fahlman
RUTH DORRIT YACOBY: Woman Holding the Stream of Her Life
By Angela Levine
REVIEWS
Symphonic Poem: The Art of Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson
edited by Carole Miller Genshaft
Reviewed by Robin Rice
Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artists
by Lisa E. Farrington
Reviewed by Alicia Craig Faxon
Goya: Images of Women
edited by Janis A. Tomlinson
Whistler, Women, & Fashion
by Margaret F. MacDonald, Susan Grace Galassi, Aileen Ribeiro, with Patricia de Montfort
Reviewed by Kimberly Christman-Campbell
Singular Women: Writiing the Artist
edited by Kristen Frederickson and Sarah E. Webb
Essays on Women Artists, "The Most Excellent"
edited by Liana De Girolami Cheney
Reviewed by Paula Birnbaum
Lavinia Fontana: A Painter and Her Patrons in Sixteenth-Century Bologna
by Caroline P. Murphy
Reviewed by Liana De Girolami Cheney
Kiki Smith: Prints, Books & Things
by Wendy Weitman
Reviewed by Cassandra Langer
Women, Art, and the Politics of Identity in Eighteenth-Century Europe
edited by Melissa Hyde and Jennifer Milam
Reviewed by Madelyn Gutwirth
Architecture and the Politics of Gender in Early Modern Europe
edited by Helen Hills
Reviewed by Lilian H. Zirpolo
Saints, Sinners, and Sisters: Gender and Northern Art in Medieval and Early Modern Europe,
edited by Jane L. Carroll and Alison G. Stewart
Reviewed by Andrea G. Pearson
Women Artists and the Decorative Arts 1880-1935: The gender of ornament,
edited by Bridget Eliot and Janice Helland
Reviewed by Dipti Bhagat
Twenty-six years! It's been a long haul. WAJ has been part of
my identity for about a third of my life. It has also been a part
of Associate Editor Margaret (Peggy) Barlow's identity, as we
have worked closely together all these years, each complementing the
other's skills. But the situation for women artists has changed dramatically
since we cobbled together that first issue, which appeared in
May 1980. There were only two new books available to review in each
of the first two issues-the others were "re-views" of books, six in all,
published since the mid-19th century. Monographs and surveys devoted
to women artists now abound, and we have reviewed as many
as 20 books per issue. Here we review 13. To demonstrate how far we
have come, I often point out the differences between my modestly
produced survey, Women and Art, published in 1978 with four color
plates, and Peggy Barlow's massive coffeetable-sized Women Artists,
published in 1999, with about 300 color plates, most full- or even
double-page spreads. Publishing books on women in the arts is now
big business, and profitable.
Additionally, more than half the books reviewed here are essay collections,
most edited by or including contributions by authors who
have written for WAJ, often on the same topic. With this in mind, I
felt that our mission was accomplished and closed the last "one point
perspective" with the teaser that WAJ would cease publication with
26:2, when an explanation would be offered.
Although Peggy and I were psychologically prepared for the journal
to end, it seems our readers were not. The outcry of support was
overwhelming, not only from authors like Alicia Faxon, Virginia Rembert,
Betsy Fahlman, Cassandra Langer, and Liana Cheney, who have
written for the journal on and off since the early eighties (and appear
in this issue as well), but from subscribers like June Walker-Wilson,
who asked whether there was "anything that could be done to prevent
closure." Long-time supporter and many-time author Joan Marter, a
professor of art history at Rutgers University, in expressing her dismay
suggested that perhaps Rutgers could take it over. Working tirelessly
during the summer months to gain the university's support, she was
successful. The news is that WAJ will NOT cease publication but will
continue with Joan Marter and Peggy Barlow as coeditors. The subscription,
advertising, and business affairs will be handled by Old City
Publishing of Philadelphia. The look of the journal will be almost the
same; only the management will differ.
The cover image, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard's Self-Portrait with Two
Pupils (1785), marks a fitting closure to my three-decade obsession
with the history of women and art. I sought the painting for the
cover of my 1978 survey, but was told by the Metropolitan Museum
that it had no transparency fit for reproduction and that the painting
was out on loan and unavailable for rephotographing. The painting, I
found, was "on loan" to the Costume Institute. (My second choice
was an equally compelling image, Artemisia Gentileschi's Self-Portrait
as "La Pittura," 1630.)
Labille-Guiard, Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, and Angelica Kauffman
were among the artists commissioned by three late-18th century
queens-Marie Antoinette, Maria Carolina, and Charlotte-to produce
conceptions of femininity to enhance their images, writes Heidi
Strobel in "Royal 'Matronage' of Women Artists in the Late-18th
Century." Strobel discusses Labille-Guiard's Self-Portrait as well as
her 1787 portrait of Louis XV's sister, Madame Adélaïde, and refers to
Mary Sheriff's work on Vigée-Lebrun. She also quotes from Sheriff's
article on that artist in Women, Art, and the Politics of Identity in
Eighteenth Century Europe (edited by Melissa Hyde and Jennifer
Milam and reviewed here by Madelyn Gutwirth). That book includes
a new reading by Sheriff of Vigée-Lebrun's Marie Antoinette and Her
Children (1787) as well as two essays on the Madame Adélaïde portrait
and two on Kauffman.
Goya's images of women was the subject of an exhibition and
beautifully illustrated catalogue edited by Janis Tomlinson and reviewed
by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell. An essay in the Hyde-Milam
book considers this same subject, focusing on the artist's depictions
of the petimetra-the popular social type who "occupies all but
is herself occupied by nothing"-as seen in his painting The Parasol
(1777). Goya lived through troubled times and great changes in the
lives of women. According to Chrisman-Campbell, "It took a brave
woman to sit for Goya; however sumptuously dressed, she was emotionally
naked." Another beautifully produced exhibition catalogue on
an artist known for his female subjects is Whistler, Women & Fashion
by Margaret MacDonald, et al. The catalogue, claims reviewer Chrisman-
Campbell, offers "fascinating insights into the mechanics of late-
Victorian fashions…[and is grounded] in the reality of [Whistler's] sitters'
lives, whether extraordinary or mundane."
Feminist scholars continue to challenge received interpretations of
canonical images. Martha Dunkelman does this for Donatello's Mary
Magdalen, which she dates to the late 1430s, rather than the 1450s,
and suggests was commissioned for Santa Maria Maddalena di Cestello,
a convent that provided refuge to repentant prostitutes, rather
than for the Baptistry of Florence. Dunkelman sees not a woman ravaged
and weakened but a model of strength and survival, most obvious
in her muscular arms.
Another bit of received wisdom here challenged is that women
lack the physical strength to create murals. In fact, Alice Stallknecht
and Aurora Reyes expressed their social, religious, and political beliefs
in murals, Reyes within the Mexican mural movement and Stallknecht
influenced by that tradition. Reyes's Attack on the Rural
Teacher (1936; back cover), commissioned for a school in Mexico
City, encompasses her major themes: education, the degradation of
women, the repressive politics of both church and state, and the brutality
perpetrated against agents of change.
Stallknecht, reversing the usual process, painted her murals and
then sought walls for them. Composed of individual canvases and having
a Christ-like central figure, The Circle Supper (1935) and Every
Man to His Trade (1945), details spread across the inside front covers,
depict members of the Chatham, Mass., community from all walks of
life. Her boldly expressionistic style eventually may have proved too
jarring for Chatham's Congregational Church, where two of her murals
were mounted, and in 1943 they were removed. (All her work now
hangs in an abandoned railroad building on her family's property.)
Virginia Rembert and Betsy Fahlman discovered their respective
subjects, Charley Toorop and Muriel Draper, respectively, in a timehonored
fashion-while researching male artists. Rembert, a Mondrian
scholar, spotted Toorop's "startling paintings" in the basement of
The Hague's Gemeentemuseum while examining some seldom-seen
Mondrians. Although Toorop is well known in Holland, Rembert's essay
is the first extensive examination of her life and work in English.
Draper, a salonnière in London and New York before and after
World War I, created an environment where creative people could relax
and pontificate. She was captured in oil paint by Romaine Brooks,
caricatured by Peggy Bacon, and was one of the multitudes depicted
in Florine Stettheimer's Cathedrals of Fifth Avenue (c. 1931).
(Fahlman came across Draper while doing research on Charles
Demuth's architectural paintings.)
Stettheimer and her champion, Barbara Bloemink, make two additional
appearances in this issue-in Women Artists and the Decorative
Arts 1880-1935, edited by Bridget Elliot and Janice Helland (reviewed
by Dipti Bhagat), and in Singular Women: Writing the Artist,
edited by Kristen Frederickson and Sarah Webb (reviewed by Paula
Birnbaum). Many of the authors in these two anthologies (as well as
the editors) have published on their subjects in WAJ. In fact, Sheriff
adds another level of understanding to the Vigée-Lebrun project
in Singular Women.
Birnbaum also reviews Essays on Women Artists: "The Most
Excellent," edited by Liana Cheney. Three contributors to this
book-Cheney, Lilian Zirpolo, and Alicia Faxon-also appear in
this issue as reviewers. Cheney reviews the first comprehensive
English-language study of Lavinia Fontana, by Caroline Murphy
(Cheney published an article in WAJ on that artist in 1984). Zirpolo
reviews Architecture and the Politics of Gender in Early Modern
Europe, edited by Helen Hills; and Faxon reviews Creating
Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women
Artists by Lisa Farrington (herself a four-time WAJ contributor).
Also included in the Cheney collection is Joyce Cohen's "Kiki
Smith's Scissors, Paste and Fire," which complements nicely Cassandra
Langer's review of the MoMA exhibition catalogue Kiki
Smith: Prints, Books & Things, by Wendy Weitman. Langer faults
this much ballyhooed feminist artist for denying that appellation.
Andrea Pearson reviews another collection of essays, Saints,
Sinners and Sisters: Gender and Northern Art in Medieval and
Early Modern Europe, edited by Jane Carroll and Alison Stewart.
The essays evolved from conference papers and were designed for
classroom use, a mission says Pearson, they accomplish.
Authors of surveys are often faulted for their omissions. Farrington's
elegantly written, comprehensive survey of African-
American women artists devotes only a sentence to the art of Aminah
Robinson. However, this multimedia artist is the subject of a
lavishly produced Abrams book, with quilted cover and foldout reproductions,
edited by Carole Genshaft and reviewed here by Robin Rice.
Not to be forgotten is the Israeli artist Ruth Dorrit Yacoby,
whose art and life are documented by Angela Levine. The only
living artist in the Portraits section, she represents the kind of
artist living away from the established art centers that we have
been pleased to introduce to our readers worldwide. Yacoby deals
ritualistically with the pain and pleasure of the female experience,
with birth and rebirth, and with the anxiety of watching your children
go off to war.
With so many familiar subjects and so many familiar names, I
was often in a state of confusion during the editing process. It
seemed as though all these friends of WAJ had come home to
roost in this issue, what was to have been the last.
I thank all the readers of WAJ, and especially our faithful subscribers,
for supporting us during our 26 years of publication.
The new team promises to retain the journal's high standards,
and I urge you to continue your support. My obsession with the
lives and work of women artists began more than three decades
ago. It is difficult to overcome an obsession, so I am sure you
will hear from me again.
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.). The full text is also available in the electronic versions of the Art Index and through JSTOR’s Arts & Sciences III Collection.
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