Women of Art History: Lubaina

Lubaina Himid. 1954-. Britain 
Artist and activist.

How many artists can you name? Chances are, you'll have named many more men than women. From the moment we are children, most of the artists and artworks we are exposed to are created by or about men. It's time to rebalance the scales and open up the artistic 'canon', introducing more women and ethnic minorities into the widely known narrative of art history. Here, I'll be trying to do just that in the style of a children's story, introducing you to one more woman from art and art history who, until now, you might not have known. 

Once upon a time, a little girl lived in a house surrounded by fabrics and colours. Lubaina Himid’s mother was a textile designer, who was constantly looking at patterns, designs and shapes. Lubaina started looking too and realised she had her own artistic skills.

When Lubaina went to university, she studied theatre design and cultural history. These subjects gave her a lot of exciting knowledge. She knew how to build things in 3D, which means it’s not just a flat painting but stands up by itself. She also thought a lot about people’s backgrounds, where they come from and what that means.

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Lubaina is black and as a young woman she thought a lot about the place of a black woman in Britain. She thought a lot about women in art and history. She thought a lot about black people in art and history. Lubaina noticed there were hardly any famous black female artists and she wanted to do something to change this.

With her passion for art, she began creating artworks that could talk about and challenge the place of black women in society.

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In the 1980s, Lubaina started to become well-known for her life-size cut outs. They were made of huge bits of cardboard and were cut out in the shape of people and could stand up all by themselves. Lubaina would fill art galleries with these cardboard people. They were so different from just a flat painting on the wall, they could surround their viewers. Lubaina didn’t want gallery visitors to be able to walk away from what she was saying. She wanted people to look at her artwork and really think about it.

Lubaina Himid, Naming the Money, 2004

You might have heard of William Hogarth who is a very famous white English male artist from the 1700s. Hogarth is one of the most famous English artists ever and Lubaina liked his paintings. But she wanted to show not all famous artists have to be white men!

William Hogarth, Marriage A La Mode, 1743

So, in 1986, Lubaina made a huge artwork called A Fashionable Marriage. In it, Lubaina copied one of Hogarth’s paintings about an unhappy marriage. Instead of a painting, Lubaina made all the characters big cardboard cut outs. In Hogarth’s painting, there weren’t any black people, so Lubaina made one of the characters a black female artist, standing right in the middle of the room, the most important character.

Lubaina Himid, A Fashionable Marriage, 1986

Lubaina’s work was also very political. She made one of the characters in her piece Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister at the time, and covered her dress in bananas to say she had slipped up a lot with all her mistakes!

Lubaina’s work celebrated black creativity and challenged the idea that only white men could create important British art. Lubaina also organised exhibitions to help other black artists who weren’t able to exhibit elsewhere. So, she isn’t just an artist but a cultural activist, which means she is always trying to bring about positive change in our society and how we view art.

Lubaina has been recognised for her work helping art become more inclusive and exciting. She received an MBE, an honour from the Queen, for her services to black women’s art. She also became the first woman of colour to receive the Turner prize in 2017, a really important prize for amazing artists.

Just like when her mum picked out beautiful fabrics, Lubaina lives in a house surrounded by interesting objects, brightly coloured materials and wood carvings. She loves to ‘hear’ the stories of the objects around her.

 Nowadays, Lubaina is living happily ever after, as a professor at a university in England, teaching art to future generations.

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Women of Art History: Peggy

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Women of Art History: Peggy.

Peggy Guggenheim. 1898- 1979. America. 
Patron, collector and gallery owner.
How many artists can you name? Chances are, you'll have named many more men than women. From the moment we are children, most of the artists and artworks we are exposed to are created by or about men. It's time to rebalance the scales and open up the artistic 'canon', introducing more women and ethnic minorities into the widely known narrative of art history. Here, I'll be trying to do just that in the style of a children's story, introducing you to one more woman from art and art history who, until now, you might not have known. 

Once upon a time, there was a girl called Peggy Guggenheim who lived in New York. Her dad had just died in a tragic accident on a ship called the Titanic. He left his daughter a lot of money which made her very wealthy. But Peggy wasn’t interested in living a life of luxury surrounded by riches. Instead, she wanted to be around the exciting new art movements that were popping up all over Europe.

So, when she was twenty she moved to Paris where lots of young artists, musicians and writers were living. If you were interested in art, it was the place to be! Sure enough, Peggy met and became friends with lots of artists. Some of these friends would go on to be very famous, such as Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp.

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After spending so much time with all of these artists, Peggy became a real expert on the new art being made in Europe. She knew that if she opened a gallery and showed the art she liked, people would want to come visit and see what Peggy had to say about what was important in the art world.

In 1938, she opened her first gallery of modern art in London. She showed a lot of artwork by her friends. Lots of people visited and were excited by what they saw. Everything in Peggy’s gallery was special. This was one of the first galleries to show modern art in London. It was so different from everything they had seen before. For example, she let Vasily Kandinsky have his first show at her gallery, and people were amazed! He used lots of shapes and splodges of paint and clashing, bright colours. Peggy showed London: this is art now.

White Cross, Vasily Kandinsky, 1922.  

After her success in London, she decided to start a museum instead, this time in Paris. The difference between a gallery and a museum was important because modern art was very new and revolutionary, and often quite shocking. Putting it in a museum would make it seem historical and like it wasn’t just a passing craze, it was there to stay. This ‘modern museum’ idea was one of the first of its kind.

She knew that her name had to be associated with an incredible collection for people to take her seriously as a gallery or museum owner. She needed to have lots and lots of artworks to show everyone. She decided to buy a painting every single day.

In 1938, World War Two broke out. The Nazis were killing Jews in Germany, and as a Jewish woman, Peggy was afraid. Even though she was scared, she wanted to stay in Europe as long as she could so that she could buy some of the amazing artworks that were being made there. She stayed in Paris right up until the Germans were approaching, just so that she could seal a deal she was working on with Brancusi.

Inside the Art of This Century gallery, 1943. 

Finally, Peggy had to flea from Paris and went to New York. There, she opened a new gallery called Art of This Century. The gallery was beautifully designed, and was made to be just as new and modern as the artworks to be displayed there.

She began to help the careers of American artists, just like she had helped the European ones. Among them was Jackson Pollock. She commissioned his largest ever painting which was 6 metres long!

Peggy, Peggy's dogs, and Jackson Pollock in front of his 6 metre long Mural, 1943. 

Pollock and his friends had just begun a new art movement called the American Abstract Expressionists. They were mainly interested in colour. It was really shocking to a lot of people because it didn’t look like the art they were used to. There were no faces or people, just lots of shapes and lots and lots of colour. Peggy was one of their biggest supporters and gave the group some of their first gallery shows. It would go on to become one of the most important American art movements ever, and Peggy was really to thank. 

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice today. 

After the war, she could finally return to Europe  and she opened a gallery in Venice. This time in the beautiful Palazzo Venier dei Leoni. It was a very very old palace, right on the canal, with water lapping at its sides. It was a gleaming white colour and could be seen by all the boats passing by. Peggy filled it with modern art by Picasso, Magritte, Pollock and Kandinsky. This was the very old building being given new life by this modern art. She gave the American artists their first ever shows in Europe. People all over Europe were shocked and inspired by this new wave of modernism.

By the 1960s, her collections were so impressive that she loaned them out across the world. Her name became associated with some of the most famous artists and artistic movements of the century.

Peggy was known all over the world. Just like the exciting artworks she promoted, she wore really bright colours, huge coats and weirdly shaped glasses, designed by artists who wanted her to wear their artwork. She was always followed around by her two little dogs.

Peggy said she was in love with Venice.

She loved living in Venice and called the beautiful city a ‘living work of art.’ She lived there until her death at the age of 81 and was buried next to her beloved dogs.

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice is still one of the greatest museums of modern art in the world.

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Women of Art History: Faith

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Women of Art History: Faith

Faith Ringgold. 1930-. America. 
Artist and Activist. 

How many artists can you name? Chances are, you'll have named many more men than women. From the moment we are children, most of the artists and artworks we are exposed to are created by or about men. It's time to rebalance the scales and open up the artistic 'canon', introducing more women and ethnic minorities into the widely known narrative of art history. Here, I'll be trying to do just that in the style of a children's story, introducing you to one more woman from art and art history who, until now, you might not have known. 

Once upon a time, there was a little girl raised in an area full of creativity and music. Faith Ringgold grew up in Harlem, New York in the 1930s, when it was a vibrant and exciting arts scene. Faith struggled with chronic asthma when she was little, so turned to art. Crayons were her favourite. Apart from all the young artists and musicians living around her, however, Faith didn't have many famous artists to look up to who were like her. Faith was African-American, and there were hardly any female artists in her school books, and even fewer black artists. She decided she'd have to forge her own path. 

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When she was younger, Faith tried to show her artwork to gallery dealers but they would look at her legs and not her art. They only saw her as a black woman, and not as an artist. She knew she’d have to keep trying.

Faith tried to study art at college, but the college wouldn't let her because she was a woman. She had to study art education instead but the whole time she was learning and teaching she was always inspired to create art. She wanted to use the issues around her in her artworks, the issues of racism and sexism that she encountered every day. Finally, in 1973, she left teaching to pursue what she really loved. 

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In the 1970s, black and white women were divided over differences in equality. Back then, feminism was seen as a white woman's cause, only helping white, middle class women to achieve a better life. Black women felt they had to fight for their own causes because their problems were so different. Faith was one of the first to think that feminism should be for both white and black women. Some black people saw her as a traitor, but Faith became very vocal about the need for equality in the art world. Racial equality and female equality. 

Although Faith was a really rounded artist who could paint and sculpt, she became most famous for her quilts. Quilts aren't just something to throw on top of your duvet, but are a really interesting art-form! They are important because quilts deal with issues of race and gender. Historically, women weren't always allowed to learn how to paint and were taught to sew instead, so quilt-making was seen as a 'woman's art, and not as important as men's painting. Quilts were also hugely important for African-American slaves in the 1800s. They made quilts with pictures on to show stories. Faith took this historical idea and made it new and political. 

Whose Afraid of Aunt Jemima? Faith Ringgold, 1983. 

Faith’s first quilt told a story about Aunt Jemima, who was a made-up Black woman used in advertising for a pancake mix. In adverts for the pancakes, people thought Jemima was fat, ugly and silly, and completely obedient to her white masters. In Faith’s story, she wanted to ‘rewrite her life.’ She made a new Aunt Jemima, one who was a smart businesswoman and had a family of her own. In the quilt, Jemima is surrounded by other black women, all dressed in rich clothes, and not the apron shown in the pancake advert.

Tar Beach, Faith Ringgold, 1988. 

Faith's best known story-quilt was called Tar Beach. It showed a black family sitting on a rooftop. The little girl, Cassie, looked up at the stars and believed she could fly. Cassie thought "I am free to go wherever I want to for the rest of my life." Faith wanted to give young black girls in America something she never really had, a role model to look up to, to tell them they really could do whatever they wanted. 

Faith was also a founder of Where We At which created exhibitions for black, female artists who weren't getting the recognition they deserved elsewhere. Faith said she wanted to give black women a 'taste of the American dream,' the feeling that they could and would achieve success, opportunity and equality. 

Nowadays, some of the things Faith was fighting for seem normal. Most people realise feminism is for everyone. But Faith's work is still important, showing us that art can be powerful and change people's minds. 

Faith's moved on quite a bit from crayons, now, and her artworks are on display all over the world. Faith is living happily ever after in New Jersey.

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Women of Art History: Peggy

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