There are things I sometimes dislike about the BBC. They pretend to be neutral, but often their journalists and producers have an agenda. However, sometimes it is this agenda which helps them uncover interesting stories.
Deborah Nicholls-Lee had an article titled “‘Unsigned and Neglected:’ These artworks are by women – but men got the credit.”
Before I go further, of course we all know that women have painted, written songs, and all the rest of it since the dawn of time. Boys and girls have a tendency to create art from a young age, and continue until they get too busy or are teased out of it. But back to the article, “men got the credit.”
At first, the title itself looks probablematic. We wonder, are these anonymous paintings being reattributed to women just to create interest? Ten minutes on YouTube is long enough to find revisionists who will create any version of history you want to believe. (And long enough to find people who believe any old made up version of history, too.)
Well, it starts getting worse before it gets better. One of the sources for the article is a book called, “Art without men.”
Some of the storytelling is missing. We want to believe that Michaelina Wautier painted The Triumph of Bacchus, and we do, but the evidence they probably used has not been presented. So, she appears in the painting. Yeah, so do a lot of men appear in that same painting. She is looking at the canvas. Does that mean everyone looking at the canvas is a painter? Maybe that was the style back then, if so, tell us.
What we want to know is how the work was reattributed to her. You show me the painting, I agree it was a talented artist. You tell me that others doubted her, fine, I believe you. But let me know what happened, how they decided that Michaelina painted it. What journal did they find?
But if we sit through the bla bla, we finally get some evidence. Or at least a story. We have to sit through a lot of amnesia before we get to the story. (Coco Channel, maybe was in a different field, but was celebrated. There were female artists celebrated along the way, it wasn’t an entire history of women being hidden as the article seems to imply.) But where is the story, where is the evidence, when does the essay become a story?
For that, we have to wait for the final painting, Tomorrow Forever, a 1963 work by Margaret Keane.
Here, unfortunately, the story comes from a fictionalised biopic. (I love biopics, but they are notorious for being inaccurate.) But the setup comes from an analysis of paintings in a book ironically titled, “Why Women can’t paint.” The book claims that “when work by men is signed it goes up in value” and the article continues, “while for women the opposite is true.”
I think back to Victor Van Gogh. After he died, his sister-in-law was able to market his work to support her child. A signature by Van Gogh would raise the value of most work, after his sister in law created the “Van Gogh” brand.
Not all men’s signature will bring up the value of a work, of course. You need a story of the life of a person.
Now, I hope to find some book with good sources and references, so I don’t have to rely on a BBC article based on a biopic, but the story presented of Keane’s authorship is interesting.
Allegedly, her husband was the business saavy type, while Keane was shy. So, he convinced (or “coerced”) her to let him sign. Or to sign simply as “KEANE.” People thought it was the husband, Walter Keane and not Maggy Keane.
When they got divorced, allegedly, they couple went before the judge. The judge asked them to recreate the painting. The man, Walter, claimed to have a bad shoulder. The woman repainted it perfectly, on the spot.
We say “allegedly,” but we believe the story. We just don’t think the sources used are very good. I loved Julius Caesar for its entertainment value, but do I really think the Caesar’s ghost visited Brutus? Macbeth was a historical person, but were the witches who “visited” him? Did Richard III really say, “My Kingdom for a horse?” or that monologue about being “unshapen?”
I would like the real story about how these artists were rediscovered. Perhaps they studied the styles under a microscope, or found documents from their relatives. If nothing else, knowing how its done could help other curators attribute future paintings.
The stories themselves might be interesting. That said, my favorite artists were never the big names. They were the ones who had interesting paintings. Perhaps the artist had a relatively uneventful life, didn’t create a lot of quotes, but was able to tell a story in the painting.
A great painting, after all, is great no matter who painted it. A poor painting is poor, no matter who painted it.