Art Appreciation: Being Seen: British Women Artists 1900-1940

Whilst this course will consider the increasing visibility of British women artists at the start of the twentieth century it will also explore their frequently subordinate roles within artists’ groups, and the difficulties they encountered when trying to get their work taken seriously. Their work has frequently been discussed in terms that have framed it as derivative of their male counterparts or in ways that downplay its importance. In recent years the work of many women artists active in the early and middle part of the twentieth century has been reassessed with a number of significant exhibitions (for example Helen Saunders, Gwen John, Winifred Knights) whilst others, whose work could be said to have had an impact on the milieu within which they worked, remain less well known. The artists to be studied on this course include both familiar and less well-known practitioners and together they will help to build a picture of women artists’ practice in the twentieth century. Artists to be studied include: Vanessa Bell, Winifred Nicholson, Jessica Dismorr, Barbara Hepworth, Paule Vézelay, Dora Carrington, Nina Hamnett, Gluck, Evelyn Dunbar, Ithell Colquhoun, Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham, Margaret Mellis, Bridget Riley, Pauline Boty and more.