Les femmes artistes d'Europe (Women Artists of Europe) was an exhibition held at the Jeu de Paume gallery (then the Museum of Contemporary Foreign Schools) in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris, France from 11 to 28 February 1937. This was the first exhibition in France devoted solely to women artists, concentrating on contemporary works. It featured 550 works by artists from 20 countries.
It was not until the very end of the 19th century that women benefited from the circuits of the art system, with studios, schools, galleries, salons, museums, newspapers, influential critics and collectors.[1] In 1897, the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts gradually began to open its doors to women, following the demands of sculptor Hélène Bertaux, founder of the Union of Women Painters and Sculptors.[2] The Swedish painter, Hanna Hirsch-Pauli (1862–1940), had presented her work at the 1889 World's Fair in Paris and the French artist, Georges Achille-Fould (1865–1951), had exhibited at the 1900 World's Fair, also in Paris. In 1903, women were first allowed to compete for the Prix de Rome, a French government scholarship for arts students.[3][4]
The period between the First and Second World Wars (1918–1939) was characterized by great contradictions for women. Legislative victories in matters of equality and suffrage were accompanied by a series of measures designed to maintain the role of women in society, in which their place was in the home, to give birth and raise children. Nevertheless, the period provided a favourable context for the promotion of women on the cultural scene. Professional societies were formed in Europe and the United States during the inter-war period to demand equality, representation, recognition, and professionalisation of women artists. These contradictions were reflected by the artists themselves. Some, like Marie Laurencin, Jacqueline Marval or Tamara de Lempicka, chose to be painters on the model of what was expected of a woman artist and agreed to work with colours and with so-called "feminine" subjects; others refused any categorization as a "woman artist".[1][3]
The exhibition
In 1937, two major events symbolised the promotion of women artists in France: the Women Artists of Europe exhibition in February, and the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (International Exhibition of Arts and Technology), also known as the 1937 World's Fair, from May to November, in which many women fulfilled commissions or exhibited. The February exhibition was co-chaired by André Dezarrois, curator of the Jeu de Paume, and Antonietta Paoli Pogliani, president of the International Committee of Fine Arts and the Women's Union of Liberal and Commercial Careers. The organizing committee included Rose Valland, curator at the Jeu de Paume, photographer Laure Albin-Guillot, and artist Marie-Anne Camax-Zoegger [fr], president of the Society of Modern Women Artists (FAM), founded in 1930.[5] The exhibition moved to Prague in the summer of 1937, under the title Women Artists of Europe Exhibit at the Prague Exhibition. In October 1939, the Riverside Museum in New York opened an exhibition entitled International Women Painters, Sculptors, Gravers [of] Australia, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Switzerland. Participation of European artists was organised by Pogliani. An exhibition of works by women artists of the magnitude of the Paris exhibition would not be held again until 1976, when the exhibition Women Artists: 1550-1950 was held in Los Angeles.[3][4][6][7]
The artists
Around 20 nations were represented. Pogliani, an Italian, was involved in the organization of the exhibition itself and many Italians exhibited, despite its fascist government under Mussolini. Nazi Germany and Spain, which was in the midst of a civil war, decided not to participate.[7]
Opening with a retrospective devoted to artists who had died a few years earlier, the exhibition featured 550 works of painting, sculpture, decorative arts, drawings, engravings, and watercolours by over one hundred artists, including those already internationally renowned at the time: such as Vanessa Bell, Laurencin, Suzanne Valadon, Albin-Guillot, Adriana Pincherle, Lempicka, and Natalia Goncharova. They were organised by the nationality of the artist, with twelve countries represented. At the end of the display was an "international room" featuring artists from other countries, such as Russia, Japan, the USA, Greece, and also some German and Spanish artists. Here, all the artists, regardless of their nationality, exhibited together, and their names were listed alphabetically in the catalogue. These included Cecilia Beaux, Romaine Brooks, Alexandra Exter, and Gontcharova.[7]
Artists represented
Some of the artists represented were invited to take part in the exhibition, while others submitted their works for consideration by a jury. They included:[8]
Sauer M., L’entrée des femmes à l’École des beaux arts, 1880–1923, Paris, École normale supérieure des beaux–arts, 1990.
Trasforini M. A. (editor), Donne d’arte. Storie e generazioni, Rome, Meltemi, 2006.
Perry G., Women artists and the Parisian avant-garde: Modernism and "feminine" art, 1900 to the late 1920s, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1995.
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