Women of Art: Profiles in Courage

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TL1998 On “Neither Model Nor Muse” at the McNay

A Scene in S.A. online exclusive

by Marcia Gygli King

(See Marcia King’s “Top Ten” in the August print edition of Scene in S.A. magazine, now on sale at H-E-B stores, Wal-Mart and Walgreen’s.)

The current exhibit at the McNay Art Museum is “Neither Model Nor Muse: Women As Artists.” The title alludes to the courage it took for women to stand outside the usual support role of the feminine, and make works of art themselves.

For more than half the twentieth century, artists and critics were said to be purifying the elements of art. In this show, in the first of the McNay’s Margaret Tobin and Robert Tobin Galleries, we see Natalia Gontcharova, a pioneer member of the Russian avant-garde. In 1916, Goncharova was commissioned to design sets for a Spanish-themed ballet. In theatrical design, freed from the dictates of “high purifying” art, the natural feminine aesthetic of pattern and decoration shines through – some fifty years before the women’s movement granted that permission to women in traditional visual art. Using the shallow space and overlapping planes of cubism, these strikingly beautiful works are reminiscent of patchwork quilts, which themselves would become a major influence in later women’s art.

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Natalia Gontcharova

Russian, 1881-1962

Spanish Dancer 1916

Gouache, collage, watercolor and graphite on board

Gift of Robert L. B. Tobin

TL1998.233

Dorothy Hood American, 1919-2000 Extensor of the Sky 1973 Oil on canvas Gift of Gary Hardison 1976.19

Jane Freilicher In Broad Daylight 1979 Oil on canvas Gift of the Semmes Foundation 1980.35

Grace Hartigan American, 1922-2008 Dido 1960 Oil on canvas Gift of Jane and Arthur Stieren 1988.3

Yvonne Jacquette American, born 1934 Midtown Composite 1997 Woodcut Gift of the Friends of the McNay 1999.78

In art history, the discipline for making art was traditionally taught by a father or husband, and the road to success seemed based on emulating the masculine. Joan Mitchell, a second-generation New York artist, straddled these two worlds. In a long relationship with the artist Jean-Paul Riopelle, known as “the Bad Boy of Art,” she surpassed him in storming, cursing and stomping. Her career has been the more prominent of the two, but behavior aside, the feminine is not buried in her work. Beautiful and subtle as her “Hudson River Day Line” is, the space is shallow and partakes of the permission for surface, which was a development of the pattern and decoration school.

One of the plaintive cries of women artists in the last century and earlier has been “the men help the men, and the women help the men.” Lee Krasner, who was married to Jackson Pollock from 1945 until his death in 1956, was a tireless advocate of Pollock’s work both during his life and as his widow. Known for her critical eye, she was said to be vitally important to his success. And her husband’s work was a dominant influence on her own. Krasner’s small 1954 vertical collage with oil and gouache in the McNay’s holdings was done during a period when Pollock was making large paintings with vertical images, their titles often bearing the significant words “totems’ and ‘poles’. Krasner’s collage mentality never left her, and was an enduring part of her work. In painting, she often inherited the unfixed image of her husband.

The time necessary for making art often presents a conflict for women artists. In the third gallery devoted to the show we see the elegant bronzes and wood sculpture of the well-respected British artist Barbara Hepworth. These are the products of an artist in full command of her talent and working effectively – yet the worried quotation from Hepworth accompanying her pieces reads: “I found that one had to do some work every day, even at midnight, because either you are a professional or you are not.’ There is an acknowledged hiatus in Hepworth’s career, during which she bore an infant son and, five years later, triplets. During this period, however, she made drawings and small plaster sculptures. Underappreciated, to this day Hepworth is almost invariably compared to her art school friend, Henry Moore.

The McNay owns an early Louise Nevelson black sculpture noted for regularity and rhythm, but not breathing the risk of the found object. The lithographs in the Tobin collection of theater arts, and her design for the program illustration for Orfeo and Eurydice, are of more interest. Accompanying her work at the McNay is a remarkable photograph of Nevelson in a sweeping black chinchilla wrap, mighty false eyelashes and a cowboy hat. Her expression is defiant and triumphant. Once again, clothes are an important form of expression for a woman.

The McNay Art Museum itself has repeatedly played a role in the trajectory of women’s art. Alice Simkins, a San Antonio curator and patron of the arts, celebrated the United States bicentennial by curating a major women’s exhibition at the McNay in 1976. One of the first of its kind in the nation, the exhibition brought artists, critics and art historians flocking to San Antonio. Ms. Simkins has remained a champion of women’s art and has donated many pieces to the museum. Fittingly, she is the head of the sponsoring committee for the current exhibition, and is owed many thanks.

In 1983, Charlotte Robinson, a former San Antonian, was the curator of a groundbreaking exhibition called “The Artist and the Quilt,” in which women artists collaborated with quilters to create contemporary versions of this indigenous American art. The exhibition opened at the McNay before touring the country. Today, the collection is owned by the Altria Group (formerly Philip Morris Co.)

The introduction of fabric into the realm of high art opened the floodgates for more unusual media. The last two galleries dedicated to “Neither Model Nor Muse” exemplify the latitude of varieties of media and expression pumped into the art world by the women’s aesthetic. Witness “Vision Catcher,” 1995, by Leslie Dill – a work executed in oil, thread and wire on tea-stained muslin.

San Antonio artist Marilyn Lanfear’s sculpture in this show is titled “Marilyn with No Middle Name; She’ll Have One When She Marries.” Since the beginning of her career, Lanfear’s themes have centered on women’s issues – and once again, clothing becomes an expressive vehicle in her work. A little girl’s dress full of flirty details is surprisingly constructed of the resistive medium of lead, and trapped in the tight, table-like structure superimposed over it. Atop this structure, which is flat, sits a tiny replica of the trapped dress, diminished in every way. This work needs no translation.

The jagged cuttings of a rubber-tire sculpture by Chakia Booker, complete with an occasional lethal metal prong and some functional tubing from engines, holds center stage in the exhibit’s final gallery. Nowhere in the show is innovation in the artist’s choice of media more evident. This black sculptor was born and grew up in heavily industrial Newark, N.J., and the cohesion between her life, environment and art is remarkable in today’s often-contrived art world. Booker is justly celebrated in current art criticism. The quasi-African robes and mysterious, two-foot high African headdress she wears at all times are entitlements accorded her both by her heritage and by feminism. Far from expressing defiance, these unique aspects of her appearance to function as enhancements and extensions of her creativity.

The movie- photographic essay at the beginning of “Neither Model Nor Muse” makes clear one more point often overlooked in art history – not all women artists are “dogs.”

If you haven’t seen this important exhibition at the McNay yet, treat yourself to a visit before it closes Sept. 12.

Find out more about the McNay at www.mcnayart.org.