Illustrations Anna Wimbledon New Hall Cambridge Anniversary Portrait oil

							Illustrations

1. Anna Wimbledon (2004) New Hall, Cambridge              5. Sandra Fisher (1983) Portrait of Jake Auerbach,
  (50th Anniversary Portrait), oil on canvas; anonymous     oil on canvas; donated by R B Kitaj 2002
  donation 2004
                                                          6. Gisha Koenig (1987) Blind School: Class Room;
2. Mary Fedden (1993) Lulu, oil on canvas; donated          Music Room; Cooking Class, bronze, edition of 5;
  by the artist 1997                                        donated by the artist 1992

3. Jila Peacock (1996) The Rose Chalice, oil on board;    7. Maggi Hambling (1987) Gulf Women Prepare for
  donated by the artist 1998                                War, oil on canvas; donated by the artist 1992

4. Anne Redpath (1963) Altar in Pigna, oil on canvas;     8. Sophie Ryder (1989) Black Horse, paper collage;
  donated by Jean Chamberlain 1992                          donated by the artist 1992




New Hall
Huntingdon Road
Cambridge
                                                                                                               Design: cantellday www.cantellday.co.uk




CB3 0DF


Tel: 01223 762227
Fax: 01223 762217
E-mail: art@newhall.cam.ac.uk
Websire: www.newhall.cam.ac.uk/womensart
Paintings for New Hall
16-21 November 2004 | London




                               NEW HALL
                               CAMBRIDGE
                               50 YEARS
The exhibition of New Hall paintings at Agnew’s
by Marina Warner


Writing in 1415 in defence of her sex against the          them for the first time. It includes many of the artists
slanders of Boccaccio and his like, the humanist and       who knew those hard times and persevered, as well
poet Christine de Pisan listed many artists in antiquity   as a host of younger ones who have been inspired and
and after. She retrieved their names from epic and         invigorated by them, standing as it were under their
annal, folklore and historical memory, often showing       branches and breathing deeply of their oxygen. The
great ingenuity in her interpretations. Among her          selection Agnew’s have made conveys the spirit of the
examples, she cites Arachne, the young woman from          whole collection, its hospitality to different approaches,
Lydia who, according to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, rashly       techniques, mediums, imagery. These range from
challenged the goddess Minerva to a weaving contest        impasto portraiture from the life (Sandra Fisher, Susan
and was then changed into a spider, condemned to           Wilson) to abstraction and collage (Sandra Blow, Sam
spin for ever. In earlier works such as Dante’s Divine     Ainsley), to graphic close scrutiny (Sarah Cawkwell),
Comedy, Arachne figured as a dire warning against          mythological storytelling and symbolism (Paula Rego,
pride, but for Christine, she was evidently one of the     Ana Maria Pacheco) and intense, personal poetics
many brilliant, innovatory female painters who had led     (Alexis Hunter, Maria Chevska). By a stroke of genuine
the way for her sex, surpassed all others in use of        foresight and collective generosity, New Hall now holds
colour, drama of invention, and even introduced new        the major study collection for the patterns and diversity
techniques of dying and tapestry-working.                  over a century of activity by women in the field of the
                                                           visual arts in Britain.
Christine was aware that she was writing against
the current, and the oversights and memory loss            Two of the artists invoke Virginia Woolf, a most apt
continued long after her bravura suggestions. But in       haunting, not least in Cambridge: though Woolf did
a sense her ambition to place women back into the          not enjoy the education of all her family’s male
story of human creative achievement has at last, after     members, her presence is vividly, dazzlingly visible
all this time, been fulfilled.                             through her famous and fierce diagnosis of the
                                                           barriers to women’s artistic achievements in A Room
While the character of the New Hall collection of          of One’s Own, delivered in another women’s college
women’s art has remained recognisable, in all its          in Cambridge, in 1929. In ‘A Sketch of the Past’ begun
variety and range, response to its defining principle –    ten years after, Woolf searches her memories as far
the work of women artists – has changed profoundly.        back as she can, to when she lay in her nursery bed
Such art no longer occupies the margins, no longer         in St Ives, and she resorts now and then to metaphors
presents a special case, or asks for different critical    from painting, like her sister Vanessa rather than
appraisal. When Helen Chadwick was nominated for           herself, recalling the ‘ecstasy’, the ‘rapture’ of those
the Turner Prize in 1987, she was the first woman and      first impressions of light and forms and splashes of
she suffered the condescension and even hostility of       colour and sound. Then she wonders, ‘that things
the press (always then on autopilot when it came to        we have felt with great intensity have an existence
women artists). Now, nobody – not even Brian Sewell        independent of our minds; are in fact still in
(I believe) – takes this line.                             existence? And if so, will it not be possible, in time,
                                                           that some device will be invented by which we can
Since the first catalogue appeared in l992, the            tap them?’ Woolf did so of course through her own
collection has grown through some loans and gifts, but     writing, but it is also the case that visual art , made
above all through continuing donations by artists who      by artists in their very different ways, revivifies our
recognise a unique ambience for their work: a living,      experiences of the world, its light, colour, as well as
working environment where young women are                  its depths and its darkness, for us who look at their
studying and experiencing independence, most of            work or, like the members of New Hall, live among it.




1 November 2004
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