Category Archives: PIONEERS

“It’s important to express oneself… provided the feelings are real and are taken from your own experience.” The act of seeing is central to Berthe Morisot’s practice – both tangible, visible subjects and simmering psychological tensions beneath. With a canny, perceptive eye she captured scenes and people from 19th century Parisian life, famously painting women…

“There is no beauty, if it doesn’t show some of the terribleness of life.” Dark eyes fall into pits of despair, a shaky, misshapen hand muffles a scream and a deathly pale face seems to catch its last breath of air; such is the hauntingly compelling world of Marlene Dumas. “I’m not good at making…

“What did I love? What was it that meant the very most to me inside my very own self? The fields and trees and fences and boards and lattices of my childhood rushed across my inner eye as if borne by a great, strong wind.” Memories colour Anne Truitt’s art, as past experiences become towering…

“I never violate an inner rhythm. I know it is essential for me. I listen to it and I stay with it. I have regards for the inner voice.” Tense, violent and shockingly bright, Lee Krasner’s abstract canvases vibrate with pulsating rhythm as if lost in their own inner tempo. Krasner was a force of…

“Paintings … germinate like a seed; in the dark soil and recesses of the living coral of the mind… They grow like a plant, slowly putting out shoots, they need pruning, meditating on, while the roots grow in the dark.” Eileen Agar was a free spirit, weaving her vibrant and endlessly experimental life into art….

Rachel Ruysch’s intricate, exquisitely detailed paintings are hidden worlds of wonder and discovery. Beneath lavish, gorgeously decadent flower and fruit displays lie the darker side of nature, as petals decay and reptilian insects emerge from the shadows into the glistening light, threatening to devour them. Like many women artists of the Dutch Golden Age Ruysch…

“…the strokes of the hammer on the chisel have to be in time with your heartbeat or pulse.” Barbara Hepworth’s name is synonymous with smooth, monolithic forms resembling human bodies or careworn sea-lashed rocks. Today she is recognised as one of Britain’s foremost Modernist sculptors, part of a generation exploring post-war abstraction with a hard-won,…

“I hated conventional art. I began to live.” Mary Cassatt was a painter’s painter, capturing her subjects with open, fluid brushstrokes loaded with energy and life. Rising to prominence in 19th century Paris, style was as radical as content, as bold brushstrokes and dazzling colours captured the minutiae of ordinary life with the rapid eye…

“I followed the thread of art and somehow discovered a path that would allow me to live.”From paintings of miniscule, showered dots to psychedelic body art and rooms of infinite light, Kusama’s art presents a complex world that exists just beyond reality. She has become a worldwide phenomenon in recent decades, ranking as the most…

“I have been to hell and back, and let me tell you it was wonderful.” Throughout her 70 year career Louise Bourgeois made art as a catharsis, expressing her most intimate fears and anxieties. Though deeply personal, her frank, open language has a universal quality, explaining why she has become such a world renowned artist…

“I live life in the margins of society, and the rules of normal society don’t apply to those who live on the fringe.” In Tamara de Lempicka’s world women are fierce, independent and effortlessly stylish. Today her highly collectable paintings are potent symbols of a bygone era, capturing the sensuous glamour and decadence of the…

“Feet – what do I need them for if I have wings to fly?” Frida Kahlo is a timeless icon, a great storyteller who weaved personal tragedy with fantasy and Mexican folklore to produce enduring images that speak of the universal human condition. In her lifetime her stunning, exquisitely detailed paintings seldom sold, yet today…

“I’ve always been absolutely terrified every single moment of my life … and I’ve never let it stop me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.” Fleshy, voluminous flowers that spread open like wings or petals that curl into tendrils of fire: these are the images that made Georgia O’Keeffe an icon of…

“The macho art world has ignored the contribution of women. But we have the power to change this.” [1] Art history can be a tricky, slippery construct to build; the broad frameworks we so often see sketched out in major publications or art museums rarely give us the whole picture. Many vital, influential figures throughout…