Challenging 'Custom and Prejudice'; the professional woman artist in England 1860-90

Thesis

This thesis examines the challenges experienced by Victorian women artists seeking to forge professional careers in the period 1860-90. Of the study’s two chapters, Florence Claxton’s painting, “Woman’s Work,” a Medley (1861), is the focus of the first, and the archival documents of the Royal Academy of Arts’ proceedings, the second. Recurring themes emerge across these chapters: the impact of the Academy on the lives of women artists, a status quo favouring men, and an active bias against women’s interests. Drawing on a wide network of resources, an interdisciplinary methodology supplies previously lost context to reinterpret the painting’s details, and to supplement and contextualise the economically written documents of the Academy. This approach thus compensates for the relative paucity of recordings of professional Victorian women artist’s lives. A significant new interpretation of the painting is offered, capable of explaining its curious organisation and representations, and suggesting how the work might operate as an allegory. Considering the painting in relation to the persona, art, and writing of Barbara Bodichon, the study argues that this painting’s representations adopted the same approach and treatment of topical issues as did Bodichon’s sponsored publication, The Englishwoman’s Journal. This chapter is followed by another that examines the evidence of the Academy’s conduct towards its women students. Instances of changes to Academy procedures over three decades, specifically relating to women, are marshalled into a coherent pattern. Here the study contends that a dominant theme of sexual discrimination is apparent. Ultimately, this study fills gaps in the current scholarly understanding of the environment in which women artists worked. It provides definitive evidence that the Academy operated a policy of discrimination, and how this was made to work. Further, that the painting may be understood more fully than individual references to topical issues, but comprehensively and coherently as a proto-feminist statement.

Authors: McKenna, A

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-o58w0kmd1
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: mid-Victorian; women artists
• Subjects: Art--History