GWA Newsletter January '23 I

Happy New Year!

Artwork of the week: Sister Corita Kent, Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules, 1965–1968

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Dearest Great Women Art Lovers,

Happy New Year! I hope this letter finds you very well.

To start, I have a very exciting announcement for you Substackers! I’ve decided to up my game here and will be posting extra content to paid subscribers. To kick things off, last week I shared an essay: How I fell in love with art, where I dived into the exhibitions that shaped me as a kid, and the art diaries I kept (image below).

In this paid part of the Substack, I’ll be sharing more personal thoughts, essays I’ve written, books I’m reading, art I’m looking at, additional podcast content, and more. If you would like to support this page, sign up below. Thank you in advance, and I hope to see you there!

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OK. Back to it.

We closed 2022 with an episode of the GWA Podcast dedicated to Sister Corita Kent – the legendary nun-turned-pop-artist, activist and educator (check out her “rules” in the image up top), and began 2023 with a Guardian column dedicated to Ruth Asawa, in light of Rishi Sunak's belief that compulsory maths is the key to education.

Next week I’m at the Jaipur Literature Festival with Xavier Bray speaking about The Story of Art without Men (22 Jan), and interviewing Anna Della Subin on Accidental Gods: Men Unwittingly Turned Divine (23 Jan).

Looking ahead, on 16 February I’m at The London Library hosting my Art/Lit Salon discussing letter writing with Celia Paul and Edmund de Waal. Book here.

As always, here are your top 5.

Katy xox

PS. This might make you laugh. As always, thank you to Waterstones for your support!

Outside London’s Waterstones Piccadilly last night!

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5 Shows in the UK

Jadé Fadojutimi, Ob-sess(h)-ion, 2020

1. Jadé Fadojutimi at Hepworth Wakefield (until 19 March)

2. Lucy McKenzie at Cabinet (until 21 January)

3. Magdalena Abakanowicz at Tate Modern (until 21 May)

4. Sussex Landscape: Chalk, Wood and Water featuring Eileen Agar, Vanessa Bell and Lee Miller at Pallant House (until 23 April)

5. Zadie Xa at Whitechapel (until 30 April)

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5 Shows Overseas

Leonor Fini, Torre-San-Lorenzo, Italy, 1952

1. Anna Maria Maiolino at MALBA, Buenos Aires (until 20 February)

2. Cressida Campbell at NGA Australia, Canberra (until 19 February)

3. Genieve Figgis at Almine Rech, Paris (until 11 February)

4. Kiki Smith at Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul (until 12 March)

5. Leonor Fini at Kasmin, New York (until 25 February)

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5 Things to Watch

Nan Goldin, Nan in the bathroom with roommate, Boston

1. All Beauty and the Bloodshed by Nan Goldin screening at the BFI

2. Charlotte, an animated film about the life of Charlotte Salomon

3. Joan Jonas at Dia Beacon

4. Nothing About Us Without Us, a film by refugees of the Moria camp in Lesvos, Greece

5. Tracey Emin on Louise Bourgeois by the Southbank Centre

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5 Things to Read

Barbara Kruger at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, August 2022

1. Between Ego and Libido: On the Work of Carolee Schneemann by Caitlín Doherty for the New Left Review

2. Burns Halperin Report, a study by Julia Haperin and Charlotte Burns revealing the true inequality in the art world. Read the report here.

3. Nikita Gale: In a Dream You Climb the Stairs by Zoé Whitley and Amy Jones

4. Nonconformers: A New History of Self-Taught Artists by Lisa Slominski

5. Rosa Bonheur's Animal Instinct by Bridget Quinn for Hyperallergic

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5 Artists Discovered

Marilyn Stafford (1925-2023)

She captured Albert Einstein in 1948, and began her photography career from there. In the 60s she photographed the likes of Twiggy, and in the 70s Indira Gandhi, India’s only woman Prime Minister to date.

Ningiukulu Teevee (b.1963)

A Canadian Inuit writer and artist, Teevee began her career in the ‘90s making coloured pencil drawings that combined Inuit folklore with her imagination. In 2009 she published an autobiographical children’s book titled Alego.

Thérèse Schwartze (1851–1918)

An acclaimed 19th-century Dutch portrait painter of royalty. She was so successful she sold 1,000+ pieces, making her a millionaire in her lifetime. Read her biography Painting for a Living.

Samira Abbassy (b.1965)

Abassay is a painter, teacher and film-maker born in Iran who emigrated to Britain at the age of 2. Her work often includes a self-portrait that has been manipulated with multiple hidden faces or an unusual detail like three eyes.

Sara Flores (b.1950)

Based in Peru, Flores is part of the Shipibo-Conibo People, an Indigenous group in the Amazonian basin, and creates geometric textile pieces which expand on the traditional form of a Kené, a Shipibo term that can mean ‘design’.

5 Things to Do in London

12 January: Articulation Prize 2023 at Whitechapel Gallery

14 January: Tour of Maria Bartuszová at Tate Modern

19 January: Tour of Kamala Ibrahim Ishag and Barbara Chase-Riboud at the Serpentine

21 January: Concrete Lates x Outlook Orchestra: Fabio & Grooverider at Southbank

25 January: Panel discussion on Women’s Journeys in the City and Beyond at the RA

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This newsletter is brought to you by Katy Hessel + Viva Ruggi