This month is a celebration of women artists - other than writers - as Caroline and Nicola visited the Tate Britain exhibition, Now You See Us. 

It was striking that, as with women writers, women artists were often denied training or access to resources and dismissed as merely pursuing hobbies.  There were many commercially successful women artists in the 400 years that this exhibition focused on despite all the barriers and challenges they faced. 

In this episode, we discuss paintings that had a personal appeal to us and some of the striking ideas that stood out to us at the time of the exhibition.

To quote from the Tate website:  

‘Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520–1920 celebrates over 100 women who forged public careers as artists. The exhibition begins with the earliest recorded women artists working in Britain. It ends with women’s place in society fundamentally changed by the First World War and the first women gaining the right to vote. Across these 400 years, women were a constant presence in the art world. Now You See Us explores these artists’ careers and asks why so many have been erased from mainstream art histories.’

The exhibition runs to 13 October so there is still time to see it.  However, if you cannot make it, it is fair to say that Tate Britain is very supportive of women artists as we mention.  Further, we also mention the book, Now You See Us edited by Tabitha Barber which details the artists featured in the exhibition.

The exhibition also includes interesting texts such as petitions that women artists made to endeavour to be included in exhibitions and art education.  The sense of struggle and determination was palpable.  They created and produced good works anyway.

Next month is Agatha Christie month. We are focusing on the biggest selling woman writer of all time and we have episodes every week including interesting interviews, book reviews, discussions with academics, a review of the Mousetrap and all sorts of celebratory specials. If you would like to get involved or take part, please just let us know in the comments and we will be in touch.

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