Old Mistresses
The day began
with Griselda outlining the reasons for writing the book and how she and her
co-author had gone about it. This was followed by Margareta Gynning, Senior Curator of the Natoionalmuseum Sweden,
talking about how she works with other genres when curating exhibitions to
tease out the meaning of the art and invite people to view an interpret it in
their own ways.
Next were two
talks looking at how female painters and female subject are represented in art.
First was Jo Rhymer, Public Programmes Manager at Sotheby's Institute of Art,
talking about Rosa Bonheur's "The Horse Fair” and how it it has been
viewed differently over the years, from being acclaimed when it was first seen
to now in storage at the National Gallery. Then we had Minna Moore-Ede from the
National Gallery talking about an exhibition she has planned for 2015 on
Renaissance Leda and the Swans.This was fascinating about how the three main
versions were either destroyed or damaged in the French Royal Collection but
copies survive which she hopes to bring together. I can’t wait!
The afternoon
brought together black female artists
Labaina Himid and Ingrid Pollard to talk about whether treatment of
female artists and changed since the book was published and how women have
turned to collaborative working. This was followed by a look at how the showing and purchasing of art by
women had changed with Ruth Noack of the Royal College of Art and Frances
Morris from the Tate.
All in all a
fascinating day which got quite philosophical at times. I came out of thinking
more about how great artists emerge from an era and a movement and use the
ideas to innovate and change things and about how there artists become the
poster boys of art history rather than why these poster boys weren’t poster
girls but still very stimulating.
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