Currently on at Strawberry Hill House, Twickenham: Celebrating Sculptress Anne Seymour Damer 17 October 2021 - 3 January 2022.
Damer was the god-daughter and heiress of Horace Walpole, who left her the house remodelled by him him in 'queer gothic' style. During her life, Anne Damer challenged gender roles not only in relation to her artistic ( Read more... )

Are we surprised at this? are we? His fair lady: how George Bernard Shaw’s wife played a vital role in his masterworks. Charlotte’s influence has been downplayed, says a new book on how women are written out of history.
Oh gee, I see, when I go and look at the blurb for the forthcoming book that this relates to, that I had a very minor interaction ( Read more... )

National Portrait Gallery to feature more women in its collection: Curators will increase representation of female artists and sitters and seek overlooked stories: yay, I guess? Having been to various exhibitions there on particular groups of women (e.g the Bluestocking circle) and particular artists (Cindy Sherman) either being or making art. A ( Read more... )

Big vagina energy: the return of the sheela na gig -
Not that they'd ever gone away, possibly the word there should be recuperation? recovery? re-evaluation? re-interpretation? Some say the explicit medieval carvings were fertility symbols; others that the figures were meant to ward off evil. Now a group of Irish feminists are bringing them back - ( Read more... )

Augusta Fells Savage, a talented sculptor who had faced obstacles due to her sex and race at every turn: [L]ittle of Savage's work survives today. Because she couldn't afford bronze, she often had to make her sculptures out of plaster; most of these have crumbled over time. Other works, like The Harp, were destroyed because they could not be moved ( Read more... )

Happy 117th birthday, Barbara Hepworth - the video to go with today's celebratory Google Doodle.
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I was initially cynical about an interview with a sexual psychophysiologist and neuroscientist but it's wonderfully It's All More Complicated about simplistic views about sexuality, sexual arousal, ideas of the gendered brain and patterns of arousal ( Read more... )

British Museum launches guided tours of LGBTQ treasures.
Perhaps the report is - after all it's rather short - a tad misleading and it's really not all about gay men having it off on Greek and Roman vases...
- while the Sapphic side is represented by the extremely chaste chocolate cups of the Ladies of Llangollen. Sigh.
I hope at least they're ( Read more... )

An excursion to Strawberry Hill House has long been a thing mooted between partner and myself as a thing we should do, and the current exhibition seemed like a particularly good occasion to do so: Lost Treasures of Strawberry Hill: Masterpieces from Horace Walpole's Collection.
Without these, one fears dear Horry's camp Gothick folly* might have ( Read more... )

And pontificate generally. A certain Mr J- J- who writes on ART in The Guardian yet again makes us ask, what are they teaching them in art-critic school these days, or possibly back in the 1950s?
Godwin encouraged his daughter’s own feeling for art, taking her to studios including that of JMW Turner. But painting, like making a monster, was a man’s ( Read more... )

And
( Read more... )