London’s Women Artists, 1900-1914

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Mengting Yu

   Pages 1-12

3. Women Artists at the Slade School of Fine Art in Edwardian London, 1901–1910

   • Mengting Yu

   Pages 13-54

4. Women Artists at the Slade School of Fine Art in the Pre-war London, 1910–1914

   • Mengting Yu

   Pages 55-95

5. Women Artists and English Exhibiting Societies

   • Mengting Yu

   Pages 97-133

6. Women Artists and the Rhythm Magazine, London 1911–1913

   • Mengting Yu

   Pages 135-164

7. Women’s International Art Club: Inclusivity, Diversity and Femininity, 1900–1914

   • Mengting Yu

   Pages 165-198

8. Back Matter

   Pages 199-220

   PDF

Drawing on untapped archives, as well as aggregating a wide range of existing published sources, this book recalibrates the understanding of women artists’ roles, outputs and receptions in London during what was indubitably a vibrant and innovative period in the history of British art, and in which the work of their male contemporaries is so well understood. The book takes its starting point from Alicia Foster’s article “Gwen John’s Self-Portrait: Art, Identity and Women Students at the Slade School,” published in 2000, where the expression “a talented and decorative group” was coined to describe common attitudes towards women artists in the late 19th and early 20th century London. This pejorative attribution strongly implied a status less significant to that of their male counterparts. The author challenges this statement's basic tenet by casting a wide net in examining women’s art education from the Slade School of Fine Art, through to the role of its graduates within a selection of London’s exhibition groups, societies and publications. This book also reconstructs ‘from scratch’ the role of the Women’s International Art Club (WIAC), hitherto entirely overlooked in art historical studies of the era. This book will be of interest to students and researchers in art and cultural history, gender studies,and in sociological studies of pre-War World War Britain. 

• Talented and Decorative Group
• London’s women artists
• London exhibition societies
• 20th century British Art
• Women art education
• London’s Women Artists, 1900-1914
• London’s pre-war years 1900-1914
• Slade School of Fine Arts
• London’s early Modernism
• Women’s International Art Club
• New English Art Club
• Allied Artists’ Association
• Women artists at the Slade School of Fine Art
• Women artists and English Exhibiting Societies
• The rhythm magazine

• Independent Scholar, Boulder, USA

  Mengting Yu

Dr. Mengting Yu is an art historian, artist and scholar with a multidisciplinary background in fine arts, art history and curatorial related studies. Dr. Yu recently received her Ph.D. in art history from the School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, under the supervision of Professor Michael J. K. Walsh. Her research interests include painting, 20th century British art, London’s early Modernism, exhibition societies, women artists and women art education in cross-cultural contexts. During her PhD years, she successfully received Research Support Grants from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies of British Art, Yale University on two occasions in support of her trips to London in April 2015 and December 2016, as well as a Dissertation Fellowship from Harry Ransom Centre, University of Texas at Austin in 2015 to visit its collections of rare manuscripts and works of art. 

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