Tea with Sickert, c1911–12
Ethel Sands
Oil paint on canvas
Sands’s house was one of the social centres for modern art in London. Here, she hosts the artist Walter Sickert (1860–1942). Seen from an unusually high vantage point, Sickert lounges in a chair, smoking. Tea is set for three. The other figure is Sands’s partner, the US-born artist Nan Hudson (1869–1957). Despite their friendship with Sickert, as women, Sands and Hudson were excluded from the Camden Town Group of artists, in which Sickert was a pivotal figure. This picture was exhibited at London’s Carfax Gallery in 1912, where a reviewer found it ‘daring’.*
Taken from the exhibition
Now You See Us Women Artists in Britain 1520–1920
(May – October 2024)
Spanning 400 years, this exhibition follows women on their journeys to becoming professional artists. From Tudor times to the First World War, artists such as Mary Beale, Angelica Kauffman, Elizabeth Butler and Laura Knight paved a new artistic path for generations of women. They challenged what it meant to be a working woman of the time by going against society’s expectations – having commercial careers as artists and taking part in public exhibitions.
Including over 150 works, the show dismantles stereotypes surrounding women artists in history, who were often thought of as amateurs. Determined to succeed and refusing to be boxed in, they daringly painted what were usually thought to be subjects for male artists: history pieces, battle scenes and the nude.
The exhibition sheds light on how these artists championed equal access to art training and academy membership, breaking boundaries and overcoming many obstacles to establish what it meant to be a woman in the art world.
[*Tate Britain]
Taken in Tate Britain
Tea with Sickert, c1911–12
Ethel Sands
Oil paint on canvas
Sands’s house was one of the social centres for modern art in London. Here, she hosts the artist Walter Sickert (1860–1942). Seen from an unusually high vantage point, Sickert lounges in a chair, smoking. Tea is set for three. The other figure is Sands’s partner, the US-born artist Nan Hudson (1869–1957). Despite their friendship with Sickert, as women, Sands and Hudson were excluded from the Camden Town Group of artists, in which Sickert was a pivotal figure. This picture was exhibited at London’s Carfax Gallery in 1912, where a reviewer found it ‘daring’.*
Taken from the exhibition
Now You See Us Women Artists in Britain 1520–1920
(May – October 2024)
Spanning 400 years, this exhibition follows women on their journeys to becoming professional artists. From Tudor times to the First World War, artists such as Mary Beale, Angelica Kauffman, Elizabeth Butler and Laura Knight paved a new artistic path for generations of women. They challenged what it meant to be a working woman of the time by going against society’s expectations – having commercial careers as artists and taking part in public exhibitions.
Including over 150 works, the show dismantles stereotypes surrounding women artists in history, who were often thought of as amateurs. Determined to succeed and refusing to be boxed in, they daringly painted what were usually thought to be subjects for male artists: history pieces, battle scenes and the nude.
The exhibition sheds light on how these artists championed equal access to art training and academy membership, breaking boundaries and overcoming many obstacles to establish what it meant to be a woman in the art world.
[*Tate Britain]
Taken in Tate Britain