Women Artists

Guerrilla Girls, Do Women Have to be Naked to Get into the Met?, 1989. Advertisement on NYC buses.

Feminism: a concept that's on my mind for a number of reasons: 1) On Wednesday I am giving my final PGC seminar on the topic of instillation art produced during the three waves of feminism. 2) The Pompidou, which I just visited is having a major exhibition on feminist art. 3) The feature article in December's issue of ARTnews is titled "The Feminist Evolution." 4) I'm working for the PGC, and while I wouldn't call Peggy a feminist, Peggy was a strong, independent, charismatic, opinionated woman, who has had a lasting impact on art history. (Although people often attribute the success of her collection to Marcel Duchamp, her art advisor and friend, because somehow despite feminists' efforts, women just can't seem to gain credit, even when and where credit is due.) 4) My new favorite artist in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection is Pegeen Vail, one of only approximately three female artists represented by the collection.

While we are on the subject of Pegeen, I'd like to share an anecdote: In a recent staff talk with Dr. Rylands, director of the PGC, one of my fellow interns asked how many works are owned by the collection. Dr. Rylands hesitated for a moment and then said , "about 350, but the precise number is debatable... It's dependent on whether we count photos, etc, and Pegeen's works." A groan passed through the room, as everyone lamented the fact that Pegeen's arts and crafts projects occupy an entire, though small, PGC gallery space.

Maybe I'm on a feminist rampage right now, but honestly is pisses me off that there is even a question regarding the legitimacy of Pegeen's work, (a frustration that is compounded by the fact that images of Pegeen's works aren't even available on the Guggenheim or PGC websites, though the rest of the collections are easily accessible.) Peggy exhibited Pegeen's work in both of her galleries, Peggy bequeathed Pegeen's work to the Solomon R. Guggenheim foundation along with the rest of her collection, as far as I know Pegeen had no other job besides painting, and honestly no one has any good response when I ask why Pegeen's art is not considered art. You know what that means? It means her work is not considered art because she's a woman, and as the Gorilla Girls point out in the poster above: women are not artists, women are just the subjects of art.

In an effort to fight the stigma against women artists, I would like to tell you a little bit about artist Pegeen Vail. Pegeen was one of Peggy Guggenheim's two children, and her only daughter. Born in Switzerland in 1926 to Peggy Guggenheim and Lawrence Vail, and raised in Paris and London by Peggy alone, Pegeen had a tumultuous childhood. Pegeen was artistic from a young age, and her talent was fostered by Peggy, who showed Pegeen's works at her galleries in London at the Guggenheim Jeune, when Pegeen was a child, and in Art of This Century in New York City, when Pegeen was a young women. Like her mother, Pegeen had a number of dysfunctional relationships, which combined with her unstable childhood lead down a path of substance abuse, which undoubtedly lead to her premature death in 1967, just as she was beginning to gain fame in the art world.

As for her art, even if Dr. Rylands and the rest of the PGC intern crew see Pegeen's works as amateur art, I find them beautiful and fascinating. The colors alone remind me of those of the fauvists, bright and symbolic. The figures are soft and wiggly, for lack of a better word, they seem to dance around the canvas as the bask in the sunlight of Peggy's former bathroom, where Pegeen's works are now kept. Though the faces of the characters seem to lack personality, a careful look proves that the works do in fact have emotional depth and perhaps autobiographical relevance. As Peggy said of the works in her own autobiography Confessions of an Art Addict, "...the people in Pegeen's paintings... never seem to be engaging in any conversation with each other, all going their own way," which is likely how Pegeen felt about all of the people in her own life.

So in an effort to do my part in ensuring that we don't allow anymore female artists slip away from the grip of the cannon, I will do my best to feature more works by women artists on this blog... On that note, do check out the Gorilla Girls' website to learn more statistics about women in the art world, such as the fact that there are now even fewer works by women on display at the Met than there were in 1989, when the poster above was first produced...