Women Artists Through Their Words - 3. Gwen John

Join writer, editor and curator Anna McNay to learn about a selection of better- and lesser-well known women artists, from across the ages and working in different mediums, by listening to them talk about their art - and their lives more generally - in their own words.

We are amid a lively period of ‘discovery’ (more accurately, ‘recovery’) of the women artists hitherto missing from our (western) art-historical canon. Yet, even as these artists and their works are celebrated, they continue to be critiqued from the clear standpoint of their being token females in a male-dominated arena. Many of these artists do exploit their sex and gender through their work, but is it right to always view and interpret their art through this lens? We will take as our source material these artists' letters, journals, poetry, interviews and memoirs – alongside their visual works – to build up a picture of their identity and artistic goals – in their own words.

Artists to be studied:

1. Frida Kahlo
2. Georgia O’Keeffe
3. Gwen John
4. Leonora Carrington
5. Tracey Emin
6. Judy Chicago
7. Marina Abramovic
8. Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun
9. Barbara Kruger
10. Barbara Hepworth
11. Francesca Woodman
12. Monica Sjöö
13. Angelica Kauffman

Anna McNay is a writer, editor, and international curator, who contributes regularly to a variety of print and online art and photography journals, including Studio International, Art Quarterly and The Flux Review. She writes catalogue essays and books, hosts panels and in conversation events at galleries, art schools and online, and has judged numerous art prizes, both nationally and internationally. McNay originally worked in academia as an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow in linguistics at the Humboldt University in Berlin and a Heath Harrison Teaching Fellow at the University of Oxford, where she lectured and gave tutorials and seminars in undergraduate and postgraduate linguistics and German translation.

Find out more about Anna’s work: Follow her on Instagram @annamcnay

Visit her website annamcnay.art

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Everyone is Welcome!

We hope to produce a recording of each event that will be available for a limited time. Events will likely take place via zoom and captions will be enabled.