Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Laura Lancaster: '40 Years of Women Artists - from the permanent collection', The New Art Gallery Walsall, UK

Laura Lancaster, Untitled, 2013, Oil on Linen, 50 x 40 cm, 19 3/4 x 15 3/4 in, Permanent Collection - The New Art Gallery Walsall, Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery

 

The New Art Gallery Walsall

40 Years of Women Artists - from the Permanent Collection

8 March - 29 June 2014

 

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Garman Ryan Collection, and the strong female characters in the Garman Epstein family and their circle of friends, including Kathleen Garman, Peggy Epstein, Isabel Rawsthorne, Lorna Wishart and Sally Ryan, this exhibition puts the spotlight on the women who feature in our Permanent Collection.
 
The Garman sisters, who hailed from Wednesbury and were daughters of a local doctor, were quite radical and inspirational females, who in the interwar period became part of the bohemian milieu of artistic life in Soho, breaking away from the conventional role of women in those days.
Over the past forty years the role of women in our society has changed dramatically and women have grown equal in all areas of life.  From the 1970s to the present day the Gallery has collected a diverse range of work by women artists and, although proportionately still more men feature in the Collection, nowadays there is no discrepancy between the number of works collected by male and female artists.  Contemporary women artists are on equal terms with their male counterparts, and we have a strong body of work, in all media, from painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture and photography, by women.
 
This exhibition, opening on International Women’s Day, will examine what defines ‘women’s art’ and makes it distinct from that of male artists, and will include works by Dorothea Wight, Elizabeth Frink, Eileen Cooper, Linder, Paula Rego, Helen Chadwick, Kitty Garman, Rita Donagh, Anya Gallaccio, Gillian Wearing, Tracey Emin, Jane and Louise Wilson, Spartacus Chetwynd and Laura Lancaster.

 

The New Art Gallery Walsall
Gallery Square
Walsall
WS2  8LG

 

http://www.thenewartgallerywalsall.org.uk/whats-on/exhibition/40-years-of-women-artists-from-the-permanent-collection