Overview
Scheduled to mark International Woman’s Day, this three-day course will focus on celebrated women painters and their self-portraits. From Marcia in antiquity to Eva Gonzalès in the nineteenth century, from Sofonisba Anguissola in the Renaissance to Michaelina Wautier in the seventeenth century, we will explore how these artists managed to break the norm of western European society by making a name and a living for themselves in a world of men. Despite achieving fame and recognition in their own time and being celebrated for their talent and skill, they were subsequently erased from the mainstream narrative of art history.
This course will reintroduce these artists, asking why and how their self-portraits were already - in their own time - engaged with this fundamental problem of recognition.
What you will discover:
• Key insights into understanding and interpreting painting
• Knowledge of key Women artists and self-portraiture
• Growing confidence in discussing works of art
Schedule
Lecture 1: Tuesday 8 March – 13:30 GMT
Before the Mirror
The invention of portraiture and self-portraiture, the symbolism of the mirror, Renaissance and Baroque, Sofonisba Anguisola, Lavinia Fontana, Catherina van Hemessen. Michaelina Wautier, Artemisia, Judith Leyster.
Lecture 2: Wednesday 9 March – 13:30 GMT
Presenting the Self
The restrictions of the academies, eighteenth and nineteenth century, women impressionists, Angelica Kauffman, Rosalba Carriera, Elisabeth Vigée-Le-Brun, Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot.
Lecture 3: Thursday 10 March – 13:30 GMT
Meeting the Gaze
Modern and contemporary self-portraits, challenging the male gaze, performance art, photographic self-portraits, Marina Abramovic, Yayoi Kusama, Njideka Akunyili, Claude Cahun, Cindy Sherman, Carrie Mae Weens, Zanele Muholi.
Image Credit: Self-Portrait with Two Pupils, Marie Gabrielle Capet (1761–1818) and Marie Marguerite Carreaux de Rosemond (died 1788) Artist: Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (French, Paris 1749–1803 Paris) Date: 1785
