Modern Masters Women Press Articles

THE MEDIA RESPONSE

Image: Elizabeth Blackadder, Church in Brittany, 1963, pencil, ink and wash, 49.5 x 68.5 cm

The Arts Society Magazine, Curator’s Choice by Christina Jansen, Holly Black, 27 July 2020 Click here to read the full article

The Observer, feature. Vanessa Thorpe, 28 June 2020, p.3

Harpy Magazine, Althaea Sandover, 30 June 2020 Click here to read the full article

Edinburgh Magazine, Ed Baker, 21 April 2020 Click here to read the full article

Bakchormeeboy, Richard Bakchormeeboy, 23 April 2020 Click here to read the full article

The Sunday National, Nan Spowart, 14 June 2020 Click here to read the full article

The Observer, Vanessa Thorpe, 28 June 2020 Click here to read the full article

Image: Anne Redpath, Flowers in a Jug, c.1963, oil on board, 82.5 x 72.5 cm

Brit Events, July 2020 Click here to read the full article

The Culture Diary, July 2020 Click here to read the full article

Where Can We Go, July 2020 Click here to read the full article

What’s On Edinburgh, July 2020 Click here to read the full article

The List, July 2020 Click here to read the full article

Art Rabbit, July 2020 Click here to read the full article

Visit Scotland, July 2020 Click here to read the full article

Arts Hub, July 2020 Click here to read the full article

Art Mag, Ian Scalter, 3 July 2020, p.19

Sunday Post, Ross Crae, 8 July 2020 Click here to read the full article

Art Lyst, Revd Jonathan Evens, 8 July 2020 Click here to read the full article

Sunday Post, interview with Claire Harkess, Jenna MacFarlane, 9 July 2020 Click here to read the full article

Edinburgh Magazine, Ed Baker, 13 July 2020 Click here to read the full article

The National, Martin Hannan, 15 July 2020 Click here to read the full article

Morning Star, Lynne Walsh, 17 July 2020 Click here to read the full article

culture

morningstaronline.co.uk morningstaronline @m_star_online

Morning Star Wednesday July 15 2020

13

SENSE OF PLACE: (Left to right from top) Kate Downie, New Day Crossing 2018; Anne Redpath, Canaries, c1960; Pat Douthwaite, Suffolk Landscape, Winter (1960); Hannah Mooney, Seascape II, 2018

ARTS AHEAD

Women fully in the frame

21ST-CENTURY POETRY Anti-Song

Female artists are still conspicuous by their absence in many exhibitions, but that’s something The Scottish Gallery aims to redress in its new show, says LYNNE WALSH

W

O M E N have been underrepresented in the art world for as long as it has existed. Today, female-created artworks sell for less than those of their male counterparts and account for only 2 per cent of the market.

The prevailing view in centuries past that ladies took up a little light water colouring as respite from flower-arranging did not change quickly. But in 1985, a backlash arrived in the United States with the Guerrilla Girls, whose mission is to bring gender and racial inequality into focus within the greater arts community.

Their “culture jamming” has included a poster campaign highlighting the fact that less than 5 per cent of the artists in the modern art sections of the New York Metropolitan Museum are women, “but 85 per cent of the nudes are female.”

The gauntlet thrown down by the Guerrillas is picked up with aplomb in a quiet corner

of that most genteel of cities, Edinburgh, where the Scottish Gallery, a purveyor of contemporary art for nearly 180 years, is staging Modern Masters Women this summer.

The exhibition includes works by Anne Redpath (1895-1965), Lily Cottrell (18961984), Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912-2004), Joan Eardley (1921-63), Pat Douthwaite (19342002), Victoria Crowe, Hannah Mooney and Frances Walker.

At its helm is Christina Jansen (pictured), managing director of the oldest commercial gallery in Scotland, and there’s passion and practicality in her approach.

She says that the gallery’s zeal derives in part from “a commercial pragmatism. For collectors, the gender of the artist is of little concern.

“The initial reaction is to a work of art devoid of the prejudice that led many women writers in the previous century to adopt male noms de plume.”

Many of the artists on show had tragedy in their lives, such as deaths in the family and

marital breakdown. Eardley’s father had served on the Western Front and those World War I experiences, plus the failure of his farm, led to his suicide in 1929 when she was eight.

Crowe’s son died with cancer in 1995, a time which saw her grief expressed in motifs of moons and flowers.

Travel is a major theme.

Redpath lived in France for a decade and travelled throughout Europe. The Poppy Field seems influenced by Matisse, with the red pulsating off the canvas, while Walker’s trips to Antarctica have led to icy landscapes where you sense the terrain crunching beneath your tread and seas that stretch away forever.

“Many women have dedicated their lives to art,” says Jansen.

“Too many of these would have been termed amateurs — terribly frustrating for women who wanted to really do something.”

The beating heart of this

show is Eardley, whose legacy is her work in social realism — portrayals of the children and tenements around her studio in Townhead, Glasgow. Juxtaposed with the stormy sea and wild landscapes of Catterline on the north-west coast, it’s a remarkable body of work.

“We can only dream,” says Jansen, “about where Eardley was going to go, in terms of abstract expressionism. She set the world on fire.”

It’s easy to fall in love with an artist who, when she heard of a storm approaching the coast, would ride her Lambretta out to Catterline and she was typical of the women the gallery wanted to serve, says Jansen. Many grew up in the post-World War I era, expecting more equality, not only at the ballot box.

“These were heady days, not as yet undermined by the political correctness which today undervalues individual talent in favour of identity politics.

“If you were good enough, the Scottish Gallery would offer you a one-woman show, not because it needed to fulfil a quota. There was no idea that this was unusual — that it was a really progressive thing.”

■ Modern Masters Women runs from July 20 to August 29, details: scottish-gallery.co.uk

Morning Star, Lynne Walsh, 17 July 2020, p. 13

The sky delivered a bewildering blue day after day. The blossom frothed too soon.

We woke in the small hours – startled – as if we’d dreamed we were lying in crosshairs, as if now nothing could be taken as read.

Overnight the old had vanished, the furniture of home been rearranged.

Predators sold off their holdings in airlines.

Biopharmaceuticals with beautiful names made landfall. Only the early birds cottoned on to the cashing out, the cashing in.

The swifts screamed in. New leaves fluttered in the only crowds. The first rose was ahead of itself but we the people lagged behind while the frail died in thousands. People wed to the idea they could still take advantage of the passing hours to better themselves merely followed the lead of their leaders, whose barefaced intent was to steal a march.

All that was metaphor returned to the body.

Permissions were given. Parties broke out.

The street found itself applauding the dead.

Then the costs were too great to be counted.

Steadfast gatherers of facts lost their minds, scientists the prize of their innocence; the troubled exchanged their messages like birds, at dawn. We flocked to the sea. Impunity smirked at the podium, on the record, in uniform, on camera, in front of the skull and crossed bones.

News of the decomps was allowed to seep out.

The borders were closed to shore up the fears.

Payrolls were purged, bullies fully insured.

We reeled through June. The roses exploded.

LEONIE RUSHFORTH ■ Leonie Rushforth has a poetry collection forthcoming from Prototype in 2021. She lives in Hackney. 21st-century Poetry is edited by Andy Croft, email info@smokestack-books.co.uk

Art Mag, Ian Scalter, 17 July 2020 Click here to read the full article

Art Exhibitions Blog, Eddie Buckle, 20 July 2020 Click here to read the full article

BBC Radio 4: Woman’s Hour, interview with Christina Jansen, Jane Garvey, Click here to listen to the full interview (38 mins in)

The Edinburgh Reporter, John Preece, 28 July 2020 Click here to read the full article

The Herald, Don’t Miss - gallery highlight, Sarah Urwin Jones, 27 July 2020 Click here to read the full article

Herald Magazine, Don’t Miss - gallery highlight, Sarah Urwin Jones, 25 July 2020, p.47

The Times, photo story, Rich Dyson, 29 July 2020, p.11

The Scotsman, photo story, Jane Barlow, 29 July 2020, p.16

The Courier & Advertiser (Angus & Dundee Edition, Perth & Perthshire Edition, Fife Edition) photo story, Jane Barlow, 29 July 2020 photo story, Jane Barlow, 29 July 2020, p.8

The Herald, photo story, Jane Barlow, 29 July 2020, p.10

Yorkshire Post, photo story, Jane Barlow, 29 July 2020, p.2

Design Curial, Sophie Killip, 29 July 2020 Click here to read the full article

Edinburgh Evening News, photo story, Jane Barlow, 30 July 2020, p.5

The Times, Four Museums and Galleries To Visit, Rachel Campbell Johnson, 31 July 2020 Click here to read the full article

The Times, Four Museums and Galleries To Visit, Rachel Campbell Johnson, 31 July 2020, p.30

The Times, photo story, Rich Dyson, 1 August 2020 Click here to read the full article

The Times, Something For The Weekend, Ashley Davies, 1 August 2020, p.3

The Times, Something For The Weekend, Ashley Davies, 1 August 2020 Click here to read the full article

Town & Country, The T&C Ten: What To Do, See and Eat in August, 3 August 2020 Click here to read the full article

The Courier, Week In Pictures, Jane Barlow, 1 August 2020 Click here to read the full article

Art Daily, Jose Villarreal, 1 August 2020 Click here to read the full article

Scottish Field, Field Culture: A Guide to Scotland’s Arts and Entertainment, Richard Bath, September 2020, p.90

The Times, Edinburgh Without The Festivals - No Fringe, But There’s Still Art To Be Found, Mike Wade, 6 August 2020 Click here to read the full article

Image: Kate Downie, The Story Bridge, 2015, ink and watercolour on paper, 70 x W138 cm

Art Mag, review, Vivien Devlin, 6 August 2020 Click here to read the full article

French Kilt, What To Do In Edinburgh This Summer, Sarah Lachlab, 6 August 2020 Click here to read the full article

The Times, review, Giles Sutherland, 7 August 2020 Click here to read the full article

The Times, 4 star review, Giles Sutherland, 7 August 2020, p.20

The Herald Magazine, review, Sarah Urwin Jones, 8 August 2020, p.38 Click here to read the full article

BBC Radio Scotland, interview with Christina Jansen, Janice Forsyth, 10 August 2020, 1 hr 7 minutes Click here to listen to the full interview

THE

SCOTTISH

GALLERY

CONTEMPORARY ART SINCE 1842