The Youngest Daughter

Elisabeth Geertruida Wassenbrrgh "Self Portrait" 1754

Elisabeth Geertruida Wassenbergh (1729-1781) was the seventh and last child of painter Jan Abel Wassenbergh. Her father, a successful artist based in Groningen, a province in the northern Netherlands, taught his craft to Elisabeth and one of her brothers, while another daughter became a sought-after embroiderer.

We don't have a lot of biographical information about Elisabeth, other than that she worked as a genre painter and miniaturist, and was known to enjoy painting members of her family. One source states that she was married for the last four years of her life, and during that time she stopped painting. After her death her reputation faded, and atttribution of her work was often ascribed to other artists, in part because she did not sign her work. However, interest in Elisabeth was revived in the last half of the 20th C and several of her paintings were included in the 2006 exhibition "The Silver Age of Groningen."

A Mughal artist at work

Unknown Mughal artist
The Lady Paints a Self-Portrait while Her Attendant Faces Her Holding a Mirror
Image from the Khamsa-e-Nizami
Pakistan (1590s)

I was thrilled to find this image when I happened to stumble upon a wonderful blog called "Self Portraits of Color"...you should totally check it out! The image above shows a lady painting a self-portrait while her attendant holds a mirror before her. Another servant is fanning her, or perhaps swatting away insects. It is a detail from within this larger piece:

Unknown Mughal artist
Image from the Khamsa-e-Nizami
Pakistan (1590s)
The British Library

Mughal painting is a style of South Asian art that developed from the Persian Miniature tradition. It was influenced by many different cultures and groups such as Hindus, Muslims, Jains, and Buddhists. It was practiced mainly during the Mughal empire in the 16th-19th C, centered in the Indian subcontinet and Afghanistan. Because I know very little about Mughal art I am going to quote directly:

 "Even though the highly-educated and cultured women of the zenana certainly did commission albums and paintings, the imperial artists would not have been allowed into the zenana [n.b. In India and Iran, the zenana was the part of a house where the women lived in seclusion] to get a glimpse of them. There are a few portraits of this period which appear to be of actual women, taken from life, and it has been suggested that these were executed by female artists within the zenana (there are signed works by at least two female artists from Jahangir’s reign)." 

~Mugal Art 

The author of the blog Self-Portraits of Color has suggested that the artist who created this piece might be Sahifa Banu. If anyone reading this has expert knowledge of this period and can tell us more about the piece, please do chime in! 

Found in an Attic!

Evelyn Dunbar, “Self-portrait”, oil on canvas,
© The Artist’s Estate, courtesy of Liss Llewellyn Fine Art 

Here's an amazing artist you may never have heard of! Evelyn Dunbar (1906-1960) was the only woman salaried by the British War Artists' Advisory Committee during WWII. Dunbar studied at the Royal College of Art and became a professional mural artist. During her war service she painted and sketched images of the home front, particularly focusing on the Women's Land Army. 

Dunbar exhibited extensively during her lifetime, but her 'name' practically disappeared after her death. Wikipedia says, "Dunbar was modest regarding her achievements...which has led to some neglect of her work until recent years." (Tip: don't be modest!) In 2013 a relative saw a piece by Dunbar being valued on BBC Antiques Roadshow and recalled a stash of the artist's work up in the attic: this cache was found to contain over 500 works of art! The discovery doubled the known works of the artist overnight. It's a fascinating story, and to read more and see examples of this artist's stunning and original work click the various links above or go to this Hyperallergic article.

This artist's lively yet accurate drawing and her unusual way of looking at the everyday world both make her work as captivating to the general population as to the art cognoscenti. She is truly a master, albeit one you may have never heard of before. Organizer of a current Dunbar retrospective exhibition, Pallant House Gallery curator Katy Norris, says, "I hope that by drawing attention to Dunbar's achievements...she will be viewed more equally with her male peers."

Self as Allegory

Mary Harju "Arte" oil on panel 11 x 14 inches 2015  collection of the artist

This charming piece by Philadelphia area-based artist Mary Harju caught my eye for its interesting blend of both action and contemplation. There is a thoughtful, almost dreamy, expression on the artist's face but her arms are tensely linked by one finger, cradling the head but ready to spring apart at any moment and get to work. To me this is nicely emblematic of what it's like to be an artist. In fact the title "Arte" refers to the entire concept of Art, and in the traditional iconography (visual symbolism) of western art, a female figure usually always symbolizes this ideal. (A well-known example is this self-portrait by Artemisia Gentileschi.)  

I asked the artist what was in her mind when she painted this self-portrait. She replied, 
"[In iconography] the emblem of "Arte" holds the tools of her trade in her hand. I'd been working on compositions for this that had seemed stilted and awkward. One day I noticed that I stick brushes in my hair as I'm working, rather like arrows on a quiver. So, this composition was born--it just clicked... I wanted the arms to feel full of potential energy--like an archer preparing to let go an arrow."

Harju studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the University of Pennsylvania and the New York Academy. Her work can be seen on her website:  http://maryharju.weebly.com/

Princess of the Arts

Maria Antonia Walpurgis Symphorosa Self Portrait at the Age of About Forty c. 1772 

Maria Antonia Walpurgis Symphorosa, Princess of Bavaria (1724-1780) was born in Munich to Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria and Elector Karl Albert of Bavaria (later Emperor Karl VII). The fourth in a family of seven children, she received a first-class education, particularly in the arts (including painting and poetry, as well as music.)

 Maria Antonia grew up to become, among other things, a highly respected composer, known particularly for her operas Il trionfo della fedeltà (The Triumph of Loyalty) and Talestri, regina delle amazoni (Thalestris, Queen of the Amazons.) Click here for a delightful YouTube clip of a modern production of Talestri!  She performed actively as a singer and keyboard player in court performances. In addition, she wrote a number of arias, a pastorale, intermezzos, meditations and motets. This intelligent and multi-talented woman also acted as the Regent of Saxony from 1763 through 1768. She was married and was the mother of nine children.

Maria Antonia's artistic fame stems from her musical achievements, but we can see from this self-portrait that she also continued to paint for her own pleasure, and very skillfully so, throughout her life.

Learning to Draw

Nguyen Phan Chanh "Learning to Draw" Ink and Gouache on Silk mounted to board 

Nguyen Phan Chanh (1892-1984) was born in a rural village in Ha Tinh province (Nghë Tinh) in Vietnam.  He was raised in a family of Confucian scholars and at first intended to follow in the family footsteps, spending his young school years practicing calligraphy and drawing and studying traditional Chinese literature in order to pass the qualifying national exams. However, these exams, were abolished right before young Chanh was due to sit them. Instead he worked as a calligrapher and teacher for many years, and his mother sold his drawings in the local market. When word came of a newly established art school, the Ècole Nationale des Beaux-Arts de L’Indochine, now known as Vietnam University of Fine Arts, Chanh immediately applied. His application was successful despite the fact that he was at least a decade older than most of his classmates, and also came from a rural area (considered at that time a grave cultural disadvantage.) It is said that at school Chanh struggled with Western-style oil painting, but he had a natural and immediate feel for silk painting, a technique which uses ink, dye and gouache on stretched silk. After winning a painting prize in Paris in 1931 he went on to build a career as a teacher, eventually becoming an esteemed professor at his alma mater, Vietnam University of the Fine Arts.

Chanh was much praised for his National feeling. His daughter Nguyet Tu recalled, "My father's life is closely attached to rural Vietnam. His memories of the Vietnamese countryside are plentiful. If you see my father's work you will realize he's a painter of rural girls." ;-) It is true that almost all of his work concentrated on scenes of village life, and specifically on young women performing everyday tasks. He depicted his subjects in their ordinary activities with a kind of elegant, calm, reserve. His style employed a unique blend of simplification and stylization combined with a very Western observation-based verisimilitude. These lines from his diary seem to sum up his approach: "Going out painting at dawn, I usually walked along rivers and canals. Once, I passed by a girl washing vegetables at the water's edge, her white shirt and black trousers only half-glimpsed in the morning mist. It was dreamlike and really beautiful. And I always like misty, dreamlike and poetic scenes."

Nguyen Phan Chanh became one of the most significant painters of Vietnamese modern art. When he passed away in 1984, his contribution to the artistic heritage of Vietnam was posthumously recognized with the highest award given to artists by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: the Ho Chi Minh Prize in Literature and Art.

The Little Woman

Martha Miller "The Little Woman" 1984  Private Collection

Maine-based artist Martha Miller attempts to dig down into the archetypal characteristics of her portrait subjects, using whatever means she deems most helpful, often including in the work certain telling details of the individual's surroundings and activities. In her engaging self-portrait, "the Little Woman", Miller has painted herself reflected in the shiny metal side of an old-school style iron, surrounded both by art supplies and domestic equipment; we see a tube of paint and also a glowingly in-use toaster, perched on the left. Miller recounts: "I did this self portrait in a painting class at USM in Gorham, Maine, in the fall of 1984 when I was 30. I was an at home Mom with 5 young children, aged 10 and under, desperate to paint and starved for time to create art." Like many artists who work at home and care for children and/or elders, Miller squeezed her art work in when she could and just never stopped. The title is ironically endearing, symbolizing how the artist's busy domestic life was necessarily diminishing yet clearly not extinguishing her artistic fire.

A mother of 5, grandmother of 5, and professor through Continuing Studies at Maine College of Art, Miller has consistently shown her work over the years in such venues as the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland. Her website can be seen at: www.marthamiller.com