E-Book Overview
This book demonstrates the value and achievement of a group of artists who are usually neglected by art historians and critics because they are female. The purpose of this book is to make public the lives and works of women artists who until recently have been little known because of marginalization due to gender. Through a life history methodology the research was able to focus on the subjective lives of four Welsh women artists and to collaborate with them in the research process to provide new insights about their lives and art careers. A biographical approach was used to write the narrative about the fifth artist who is no longer living. Obstacles to women's careers in art continue to be a concern for the artists. They reported tensions: within the home, in their art training, in attempting to exhibit and gain critical recognition, in their identification as Welsh, in their choice to work in Wales rather than in the leading art centers such as London, and in their choice of art media, genre and content. The central theme of the book is the diversity of women's contributions to the visual culture of Wales.
E-Book Content
THE LIFE HISTORIES OF FIVE CONTEMPORARY WELSH WOMEN ARTISTS THE LIFE HISTORIES OF FIVE CONTEMPORARY WELSH WOMEN ARTISTS The Interweaving of Art into Living and Living into Art Penelope Collet With a Foreword by Sue Gillett The Edwin Mellen Press LewistoneQueenstoneLampeter Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Collet, Penelope Josephine. The life histories offive contemporary Welsh women artists: the interweaving of art into living and living into art I Penelope Collet; with a Foreword by Sue Gillett. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-7734-2667-2 (hardcover) ISBN-l 0: 0-7734-2667-1 (hardcover) 1. Women artists--Wales--Biography L Title. N6796.C65 2012 709.2'5209429--dc23 [B) 2012011107 horsserie. A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Front cover image: Mary Lloyd Jones, Blue North, oil on canvas 5ft x 6ft (2009). Reproduced with the pennission of the artist. Copyright C 2012 Penelope Collet All rights reserved. For information contact The Edwin Mellen Press Box 450 Lewiston, New York USA 14092-0450 The Edwin Mellen Press Box 67 Queenston. Ontario CANADA LOS lLO The Edwin Mellen Press. Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales UNITED KINGDOM SA48 8LT Printed in the United States of America To My Grandsons Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................. i Black and White Plates .................................................................. iii Colour Plates ................................................................................. vii Foreword by Dr Sue Gillett............................................................ ix AcknowledgIllents .................................................................. XIII Chapter One - Introduction ............................................................. 1 Context ....................·.............................................................4 Women's visual culture traditions ....................................... 6 The women artists ................................................................ 9 Chapter Two - The Research Approach ........................................ 15 Introduction ........................................................................ 15 Artists' biographies ............................................................ 17 Life history methodology ...................................................22 My position ........................................................................ 28 Chapter Three - Mary Lloyd Jones ......................................