Academic Session 1: Warwick 2011
AAH Annual Conference 2011
31 March - 2 April, University of Warwick
‘The Noblest Form Demands Strenuous Labour’: Women Sculptors, 1600–present
Session Convenors:
Amy Mechowski, Assistant Curator of Sculpture, Victoria and Albert Museum, A.Mechowski@vam.ac.uk
Fran Lloyd, Associate Dean Research, Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture, Kingston University
Women sculptors have long occupied a precarious place within the academy, history of art and the art market. Traditional sculptural media have been historically regarded as involving an exertion, danger and outright messiness that was socially and physically inappropriate to women. As ‘feminist art history’ continues to be a highly
contested term and the parameters which define ‘sculpture’ itself (in both form and practice) are consistently challenged, the question becomes: what might the past, present and future hold for women sculptors and their work? This session will explore the conditions under which the work of women sculptors has been produced, collected, exhibited and circulated. Some of the issues addressed by the session include: women sculptors’ negotiation of their art practice amidst
incompatible discourses of femininity; the role of technical ‘mastery’ and originality in making claims to professionalism; and the treatment of themes and experiences in three-dimensions, such as maternity and melancholy, which are gendered by their very definition.
Speakers & Papers:
Shannon Hunter Hurtado (University of Edinburgh)
Victorian Women Sculptors: Constructing Acceptably Transgressive Lives
Claudine Mitchell (University of Leeds)
The Craftsmanship of Style and the Notion of the "Woman Sculptor"
Rebecca Baillie (Essex University)
Louise Bourgeois, Kiki Smith and Klara Kristalova: The Symbolism of Melancholy in
the Work of Three Female Sculptors