Sarah Bernhardt (French, 1844 - 1923), Inkwell: Self-portrait as a Sphinx, 1880, bronze, Princeton University Library
Who knew that the divine Ms. B. was also a sculptress? Here she has cast herself in bronze, a work she sometimes carried to concerts and put on display. While "tragedy" and "comedy" top her shoulders, she portrays herself as part bat, griffon, and fish which demonstrate her many interests.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864-1901), Madame Réjane
1898, printed 1951, crayon lithograph with scraping, gift of M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., Baltimore Museum of Art
Gabrielle Réjane was a leading French actress of the early 20th century who also played on Broadway and in silent films. When she died, says Wikipedia, Paris "lost its soul" for she "was widely regarded as the embodiment of the Parisienne." Toulouse-Lautrec captured the liveliness and world of Paris on stage with his many drawings of the stars and dancers of the day.
James Van Der Zee (American, 1886-1983), Hazel Scott, 1936,
gelatin silver print, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Hazel Scott was a jazz pianist and singer, born in Trinidad who moved with her mother to the U.S. A musical prodigy, she was only eight years old when she was offered scholarships to the Julliard School. She was the first black American to host her own television show, but after she testified before Joseph McCarthy's House on Un-American Activities Committee, her career floundered and she moved to Paris. From 1945 to 1960 she was married to U.S. Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, and their son is Adam Clayton Powell III.
Listen to some of her music and see her perform here. Martin Lewis (American, born Australia, 1881-1962), Shadow Dance
1930, drypoint and sandpaper ground, gift of Blanche Adler, Baltimore Museum of Art
Is this a photograph? A print? A lithograph? The shadows and shapes captured my attention at the BMA show and at the National Gallery of Art in Washington which has the same work on view in the East Building. It reminds me of the famous photograph of Princess Diana holding two young children before she married Prince Charles.
Carl Van Vechten (American, 1880 - 1964), Bessie Smith, 1936
gelatin silver print, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
The "Empress of the Blues" grew up in Chattanooga where she sang on street corners with her brother playing the guitar, after their parents died and left the siblings in the care of an older sister. By her early 20s, Bessie's popularity in the South and the East led to a career cumulating in 160 recordings for Columbia Records. The Great Depression almost ruined her career which a deadly car wreck in Mississippi in 1937 did end when Ms. Smith was 43. Listen to her sing I Ain't Got Nobody on YouTube. Belva Lockwood, left, with Dr. Mary Walker, c. 1912, photograph, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Ms. Lockwood was one of the first female lawyers in the U.S. and the first to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. She was a presidential candidate in 1882 and 1884 and the first woman whose name appeared on ballots. Sometimes Victoria Woodhull (see above) is listed as the first woman who ran for the presidency, but she was not old enough. (A candidate must be 35.)
When Ms. Lockwood finished her coursework in Washington, D.C. at the National University School of Law (the predecessor of the George Washington University Law School), the school refused to grant her a diploma because she was a woman, and it was only after her plea to U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant, who was the ex officio president of the school, that she was awarded a diploma and could finally practice law.
According to Wikipedia, a judge for the Maryland Bar Association lectured Ms. Lockwood "that God Himself had determined that women were not equal to men and never could be. When she tried to respond on her own behalf, he said she had no right to speak and had her removed from the courtroom."
She is buried in Congressional Cemetery in Washington.
Dr. Mary Walker is the only woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor and one of only eight civilians. She was a spy for the Union Army during the Civil War and was arrested when she, the first U.S. female surgeon for the U.S. Army, crossed enemy lines to treat soldiers.
An abolitionist, she was also an ardent suffragette who was frequently arrested for wearing men's clothing. Male attire was more comfortable, safer and more hygienic than long skirts which spread dirt and dust, she claimed. Despite years of criticism for dressing like a man, she stood her ground.
Dr. Walker died a year before the passage in 1919 of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote.
Currier & Ives (New York, 1857-1907), Woman’s Holy War. Grand Charge on the enemy’s works, c. 1874, lithograph, Library of Congress
Here we have a woman joining the 19th century temperance battle against the evils of alcohol. Back then, maybe "she" wasn't so bad.
Sarah Choate Sears (American, 1858-1935), editor and publisher: Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946), Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, 1907, gift of Cary Ross, Baltimore Museum of Art
Among many occupations, Ms. Howe was a poet who composed The Battle Hymn of the Republic sung thousands of times ever since it was published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1862. She co-founded the American Woman Suffrage Association and organized the Association for the Advancement of Women to help women improve their education and successfully enter the working world.
Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, "Nadar" (French, 1820-1910), George Sand, 1864, woodburytype (after Nadar negative), gift of Leland Rice, Baltimore Museum of Art
George Sand, the pen name of Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin (1804-1876), was more popular than Victor Hugo or Honoré de Balzac during her heyday of the 1830s and 1840s in France. Some writers influenced by George Sand were Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Marcel Proust, and Virginia Woolf (below). Gisèle Freund (French, born Germany, 1908-2000), Virginia Woolf, 1939, color photograph, collection of Penelope S. Cordish
Ms. Woolf was an English writer (1882-1941) whose works "inspiring feminism" have been translated into more than 50 languages. Hear the only surviving recording of Ms. Woolf here. The Baltimore Museum of Art/photo by Patricia Leslie
The entrance to the Baltimore Museum of Art, reminiscent of the new USPS stamp series featuring works by Cuban and New York artist Emilio Sanchez (1921-1999)/photo by Patricia Leslie
It's not all negative in the three small galleries featuring 75 European and American prints, photographs, books, and sculpture from Renaissance artists to the 20th century which show heroines, witches and femmes fatales, performers, new women, and authors.
Edvard Munch's famous Vampire of the woman with the long hair sucking blood from a man's neck plus all those evil, conniving Biblical women and Greek heroines women you've read about for years: Eve, Delilah, and Salome, and Greek counterparts whose names have endured for their acts of maliciousness and murder: Medusa and her snakes, Pandora, Judith, Phyllis are here.
After you've moved through the first gallery of murder and mayhem, the second gallery brings a breath of airy escape to see the faces and works by independent women admired for the trails they have laid.
It is likely that younger women may have no experiences with the inferior status older women have endured, or, at least, not in the same amounts. This exhibition is an introduction.
BMA's senior curator of prints, drawings and photographs, Andaleeb Badiee Banta, said she had been considering the idea for the exhibition for several years, beginning when she was at another institution, but it was not until she came to the BMA with its exquisite collection of prints and drawings that she took the idea to museum management who said "yes" before she could finish her description of her proposal.
The show will be up for the anniversary of Women's Strike for Equality Day, first held on August 26, 1970 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which gave women the right to vote.
This exhibition is supported by Nancy Hackerman, Clair Zamoiski Segal, Amy and Marc Meadows, Patricia Lasher and Richard Jacobs, and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
What: Women Behaving Badly: 400 Years of Power & Protest
When: Wednesday - Sunday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. now through Dec. 19, 2021
Where: Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218
Getting there: From Washington, D.C. on the train, it's an easy, comfortable, and economical one-hour ride on the MARC train. Plenty of departures. Once at the Baltimore Penn Station, take the free Circulator shuttle north up Charles Street, get off at 31st and walk up the short hill. Directions and parking.
For more information, call: (443) 573-1700
TDD: (410) 396-4930 and/or visit artbma.org.
patricialesli@gmail.com
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