Marianne von Werefkin: Stunning Expressionism

Marianne von Werefkin - Sturmwind (Storm Wind) c. 1915-17- Oil on canvas - 47 x 62 cmRussian-German-Swiss Expressionist Marianne von Werefkin (1860-1938) met fellow artist Alexei Jawlensky in 1892—and moved with him to Munich in 1896. She put her own painting on hold for over ten years for the sake of his art—but began painting again in 1906. 

While in Munich, the couple met Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter. The four artists frequently painted together, in the open air, in and around Murnau—a rural town outside of Munich where Münter owned a house. They founded a new artist-group in 1909, the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (New Association of Artists in Munich, NKVM). It became a forum of exhibitions and programming. After a few years, however, Kandinsky and co-member Franz Marc distanced themselves from this group and formed Der Blau Reiter ( the Blue Rider), which covers the second phase of German Expressionism.

At the outbreak of WWI, Werefkin and Jawlensky moved to Switzerland, eventually settling in Geneva. By 1918, the couple had separated and Werefkin moved alone to Ascona, located on the shore of Lake Maggiore, in Switzerland, where she remained for the rest of her life. She continued to paint in the Expressionist style. She also formed another artists’ group, Großer Bär (Big Bear) in 1924.

Werefkin’s work embodies influences from both Paul Gauguin and Edvard Munch, yet her results are uniquely her own. She is one of many female artists to whom a great deal more scholarly attention should be paid.

Elizabeth Catlett: An Icon of Expressionism

Elizabeth Catlett - Woman Fixing Her Hair - 1993 - Magogany and opals - 27 x 18 x 13 in. (68.6 x 45.7 x 33 cm) - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York African-American born sculptor and printmaker Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012) is best known for the sculptures and prints she produced during the 1960s and 1970s—which are seen as politically charged. Her works often focus on the female experience.

Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Catlett graduated from Howard University in 1935. She later received a master’s degree from the State University of Iowa.  During the 1940s, Catlett taught art at a number of schools and began to exhibit with other African American artists who would go on to equally illustrative careers, including Robert Blackburn, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Norman Lewis, Archibald Motley, and Charles White. She became the “promotion director” for the George Washington Carver School in Harlem. In 1946, she received a Rosenwald Fun Fellowship that allowed her to travel to Mexico, where she studied wood carving and ceramic sculpture at the Escuela de Pintura y Esculture, in Esmeralda. She later moved to Mexico, married, and became a Mexican citizen.

Her work is a mixture of the abstract and the figurative, in the Modernist tradition, with clear influences from African and Mexican artistic traditions, as well. According to the Catlett, the main purpose of her work is to convey social messages rather than pure aesthetics. While not very well known to the general public, her work is heavily studied by art students looking to depict race, gender and class issues.

Woman Fixing Her Hair is a late sculpture that embodies the characteristics of her best work. Its subject, a nude woman caught in the act of her daily toiletry, is familiar and empathetic. Melding human form and furniture into a seamless whole, the artist navigates a line between abstraction and realism, cubism and biomorphism. Her exquisite handling of natural material-the smoothly polished mahogany and luminous opals-conveys the beauty that she sees in her subject matter.” (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC)

Properzia de’Rossi: A “Life”

Properzia de’Rossi - Joseph and Potiphar's Wife - 1520s - Marble - Museo de San Petronio, Bologna (click photo for larger image)Properzia de’Rossi (ca. 1490-1530) was an Italian sculptor, and one of the few recorded women artists in the 16th century. She is the only woman to whom Giorgio Vasari ( 1511-1574) gives a "life" in his  Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, considered the ideological foundation of art historical writing. 

Her inclusion in that work indicates that she was an exceptional artist. Unfortunately, she died young and the only sure work in marble by her hand is a relief for the portal of the Cathedral of Bologna representing the Old Testament story of the Chastity of Joseph. This relief emphasizes the contrast between the voluptuous, eager wife of Potiphar and Joseph's determination to escape her and remain true to his beliefs. This marble relief was commissioned by the Fabbrica of San Petronio for the façade of San Petronio in Bologna.

According to Vasari, Properzia began her career by carving peach stones. One of them, which he described as engraved with the entire Passion, has been identified as forming part of a necklace (Pesaro, Palazzo Bonamini-Pepoli). An engraved cherry stone (Florence, Uffizi) has been attributed to her, as well as 11 carved peach stones set in a device of filigree silver (Bologna, Museo Civico).

To learn more about Properzia and other women artists, I recommend watching “The Story of Women and Art” hosted by Amanda Vickery. She’ll show you some of those peach stones Properzia carved!

Gabriele Münter: Driven and Dedicated

Gabriel Münter - Portrait of a Young Woman, oil on canvas - 1909 - Milwaukee Art Museum (click photo for larger image)German Expressionist artist Gabriele Münter (1877-1962) was one of the founders in 1909 of the avant-garde artists’ group Neue Künstlervereinigung (“New Artists’ Association”) formed by Munich artists challenging the official art of the day. The artists in the group were united in their purpose, not in their style. In 1911 Münter joined Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) in leaving the group to form the rival association, Der Blaue Reiter (“The Blue Rider”), the second phase of German Expressionism, which reached its peak in Berlin, during the 1920s.

A student of Kandinsky, Münter fell in love with the painter and lived with him for more than a decade, during the period leading up to WWI. Münter exhibited paintings at the Blaue Reiter exhibitions of 1911 and 1912. While sharing the group’s characteristic intensity of color and expressiveness of line, her still life paintings, figures, and landscapes remained uniquely representational rather than abstract. The painting featured here is one of her more notable works.

Artemisia Gentileschi: A Survivor

Artemisia Gentileschi - Susanna and the Elders - 1610 - Oil on canvas, 170 x 121 cm - Schloss Weissenstein, Pommersfelden - This is Artemisia’s first signed and extant work. (click photo for larger image)Artemisia Gentileschi - Judith Beheading Holofernes - 1611-12 - Oil on canvas, 159 x 126 cm - Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples (click photo for larger image)Caravaggio - Judith Beheading Holofernes - c. 1598 - Oil on canvas, 145 x 195 cm - Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome. This is the painting that inspired Artemisia’s interpretation of the same subject matter (click photo for larger image)Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1652) was one of the greatest of  the Caravaggesque painters and a formidable personality. In 1610 she painted her first extant signed and dated work, Susanna and the Elders.

In February or early March 1612, Agostino Tassi, employed as Artemisia's perspective teacher, was accused of raping her and subsequently was tried and imprisoned. Perhaps to mitigate her plight, Artemisia married the Florentine Pierantonio Stiattesi, left Rome, and moved to the Tuscan capital.

The dating of some of her most celebrated early paintings remains controversial. These include Judith Beheading Holofernes, a response to Caravaggio's canonical interpretation of the subject. Artemisia signed herself Lomi, her father's real surname, on Florentine works.

Highly regarded, she joined the Accademia del Disegno in 1616 as its first female member. Baldinucci's brief biography describes her prolific activity as a portraitist, though few examples have survived. In

1620 she wrote to Cosimo II de' Medici informing him of a proposed trip to Rome. It is documented that she was there in 1621 and again between 1622 and 1626. By 1627 she was in Venice but later moved to Naples where she signed her earliest securely datable Neapolitan work, the Annunciation (1630, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples). It seems she lived there until her death, except for a sojourn to England in 1638, to assist her elderly father.