To Those Sitting in Darkness

To Those Sitting in Darkness, by Pio Abad

at the Ashmolean, Oxford.

An interesting exhibition and very different to what is usually exhibited in museums and galleries.

New drawings and objects by London-based artist Pio Abad. The title 'To Those Sitting in Darkness' is a reference to American writer Mark Twain's satire 'To the Person Sitting in Darkness' which strongly criticised imperialism. Deeply informed by the history of the world and particularly the Philippines, where Abad was born and raised, his works draw out transnational lines between historical incidents and people, and our lives today. Concerned with colonial history and cultural loss, Abad's works are exhibited together with select works by other artists and 'diasporic' objects chosen by the artist.

Abad views the exhibition as 'an act of illumination that puts unexamined histories on display and addresses objects that have been confined to the margins of story-telling'. Representing the artist's own voice, the commentary on each piece adds an important narrative layer to his visual work.

Carlos Villa, 1971

This portrait By Filipino American artist Carlos Villa looks to ethnographic imagery as a way of linking the past with the present. An Itek print is covered with ink designs on Villa's face, suggesting the tatooing culture prevalent in Pacific Islander cultures. While the facial marks are the artist's own design, the motifs reference transoceanic cultures, from Aotearoa to the Philippines, Hawaii to the American Pacific Northwest. This work has become emblematic of Villa's celebration of the self as a product of syncretic solidarities.

When I was invited by the Ashmolean, Villa's act of defiant re-construction in the face of immeasurable cultural loss was an important starting point.

Pio Abad, Giolo's Lament, 2023

This work is based on an etching by John Savage. Reading an account of Giolo's life, a passage about his journey to England struck me: 'This Indian prince was taken prisoner by an English man of war, as he and his mother were going out upon the sea in a pleasure-boat. His mother died on ship-board; at which the prince, her son, showed abundance of concern and sorrow.

Giolo's Lament traverses his tattooed hand through engravings arranged on the walls like a musical score. A spectral limb grasping for something out of reach, perhaps reading out for a body lost at sea. Inscribed on pink marble, Giolo is at once monoment and flesh, etching the forgotten man into permanence but also reminding us of his fragile humanity. In freeing Giolo from the archives, I wanted to portray him as a trafficked body and a grieving son, not a specimen of curiosity.

Bladed Weaponry from Mindanao, 19th century

The most recurrent object from the Philipines in museum collections is the bladed weapon from Mindanao, where indigenous tribes adapted Islam into their belief system. The founding collection of the Pitt Rivers Museums included kris swords, wavy dougle-edged weapons with precious handles. They were made for individual warriors carrying a spiritual potency bestowed upon its owner. Most of them were gathered during the Philippine-American War in the early 20th century, when American colonisers waged asymmetric battles against the Moros, the local Muslim population in Mindanao. Since the arrival of the Spanish on Philippine soil, the indigenous Mindanao people have waged a seccessionist struggle against a national government that has inherited the dehumanised depiction of Moros from their colonisers. The very categorisation of Moro weaponry as Philipine artefacts could be considered as an act of violence, appending them to a national category that they have resisted.  Here, Moro weapons from the Pitt Rivers collection are exhibited for the first time since accession.

Sinaglata, Woven fabrics, 2017

The Moro swords encounter contemporary fabrics from Mindanao. Outside the Philippines, little is known about the siege of Marawi in 2017, when the national government under then President Rodrigo Duterte, aided by the American military, rained bombs on the northwestern Mindanao city of Marawi, in a quest to capture a militant group affiliated with the Islamic State. The conflict levelled the entire city and devastated hundreds of thousands of lives. Sinagtala is a community of weavers built on the ashes of this under-reported war. Established by Jamela Alindogan, a journalist covering thesiege, Sinagtala (starlight in English) supports displaced women, who wove as the bombs fell. The jagged motifs on the traditional fabric represent the tremors that reverberated around the weavers. Amidst the inhumanity of war, the loom became their site of refuge, their grief woven ferociously into colour and pattern.

Pio Abad, 1897.76.36.18.6, 2003

I came across a startling discovery, reading Dan Hick's book The Brutish Museum. My flat is located in what used to be the Great Stores of the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich. In preparation for the punitive Benin expedition in February 1897, an act of retaliation to the killings of a small British delegation to the Kingdom a month earlier, the Grand Stores became the staging post for the British Army.

I started seeing things in my flat in terms of the language of theft. Tropical plants that grow in a climate that they weren't accustoned to; ingredients in my kitchen that were products of painful histories of extraction; objects of personal significance that echo kidnapped rtefacts carrying specific spiritual significance. 

In these drawings, Benin bronzes from the British Museum are measured and arranged next to objects in my home. I want to find a non-empirical way of accounting for these stolen artefacts, tracing the narrative of dispossession according to personal and emotional dimensions. The title mimics the format of museum accession codes, linking the year of the raid with my address. Home becomes the site where shared histories of loss can be contemplated.

Pio Abad and Frances Wadsworth Jones, For the Sphinx, 2023, (bronze)

In the gardens of Blenheim Palace sit a pair of Sphinx sculptures bearing the likeness of Gladys Deacon, the Duchess of Marlborough, who lived in the palace during her tumultuous marriage to Charles Spencer-Churchill. I ended up in Blenheim after coming across a photograph of Deacon with a pearl and diamond diadem. This diadem, patterned after a traditional Russian folk headdress, was originallhy owned by the Romanov family. After their execution in 1918, the tiara was nationalised by the Bolshevik regime. On behalf of Joseph Stalin's government it was auctioned off by Christies in 1927 and acquired by Deacon.

My first glimpse of the Kokoshnik tiara, previously owned by Gladys Deacon, was during a press conference in Manila in 2016. It unexpectedly appeared as the centrepiece of a horde of jewellery that the government had confiscated from the Philippine kleptocrat Imelda Marcos. It seemed that Mrs Marcos had purchased the diadem shortly after Deacon's death in 1978. Today, the Kokoshnik is locked in the central bank vaults in Manila.

Here, the tiara appears as a pair of identical sculptures, reconstructed by my wife and collaborator, jeweller Frances Wadsworth Jones. Facing each other akin to the Blenheim sphinxes, the diadems bear witness to each other, their outrageous provenance and recurrence in history, turning them into intimate testimonies to endless cycles of violence, upheaeval and impunity.

George Le Clerc Egerton, Sacrificial Altar, Benin, 1897

George Le Clerc Egerton was the chief of staff of the 1897 Benin expedition. He kept a journal of the raid with each page beginning with heading 'Orders for Tomorrow' - imperial plunder reduced to a banal language of British bureaucracy. As it approaches the 18th of February, the violent climax of the expedition, the diary gets increasingly stained, the pages bearing the residue of an entire city set ablaze, its people decimated, and the bronzes looted.

Alongside the journal, Egerton produced a watercolour depicting a scenely shortly after the attack: a Benin altar with eight bronze heads and three ceremonial bells arranged in a row, lying on what appear to be pools of blood. Forty three of the Benin bronzes in the collection of the Pit Rivers Museum are on loan from the Le Clerc Egerton Trust.




 

Loughborough Fair

Last Friday we went to Loughborough to see some friends and then to the fair which takes over the whole of the centre of the town. Loughborough fair is the second biggest in the country.

So many memories of both Loughborough and the fair... We hadn't been to Loughborough for 15 years? and the fair much longer.

We got there around 3:00 and it was very quiet.





Lots of rides, some of which I had not seen before

and lots of junk food and sweet things

The whole atmosphere completely changed once it got dark - lots of people around, and it got busier and busier

This one looked gentle enough

until it got going

Not only did this one go up and down and around, but also the seats spun around at the same time

Not very nice

The house of horror

The wings on this one go all the way up to the top

Again, this one spun around in all sorts of directions, and it was very fast

All strapped up and going up and down

they're all the way up now

I'm sure you've gathered from my descriptions that I don't know much about these rides. Fairs have not really interested me much, but we did used to go a lot in the past when we used to go to Loughborough on a regular basis. But, I did enjoy it this time very much, it was such a lovely atmosphere, everyone having a good time, really enjoying themselves.

Loud music everywhere. Saw a baby in his dad's arms screaming while covering her ears, and I could really sympathise.

There was duplication of most of the rides

and the fair was getting busier all the time.

We left early, at 6:00. All the way to our friends' house we could see people walking down towards the fair. We had a quick cup of tea with our friends at their house, and then we drove back as we had to be home that evening. It was all great fun.

Now You See Us

Now You See Us - Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920

at Tate Britain.

The exhibition begins with the earliest recorded women artists working in Britain. It ends with women's place in society fundamentally changed by WWI and the first women gaining the right to vote. Across these 400 years, women were a constant presence in the art world. The exhibition explores these artists' careers and asks why so many have been erased from mainstream art histories.

Organised chronologically, the exhibition followed women who practised art as a livelihood rather than an accomplishment. The chosen works were often exhibited at public exhibitions, where these artists sold their art and made their reputations. These women were regarded differently and their fight to be accepted as professional artists on equal terms with men was hard.

Many of the works we saw reflected prejudiced notions of the most appropriate art forms and subjects for women. Others challenged the commonly held belief that women were best suited to 'imitation', proving they have always been capable of creative invention. From painting epic battle scenes to campaigning for access to art academies, these women defied society's limited expectations of them and forged their own paths. Yet so many of their careers have been forgotten and artworks lost. Drawing on the artists' own writings, art criticism, and new and established research, this exhibition attempted to restore these women to their rightful place in art history.

In this post I have concentrated on more recent artists and their work while at the same time, trying to give a brief history of these 400 years.

Angelica Kauffman, Invention, 1778-80, (oil on canvas)

This painting is one of four allegorical roundels representing the Elements of Art that Kauffman was commissioned to paint for the ceiling of the Royal Academy's Council Chamber. In this work, a figure representing 'invention' looks upwards for inspiration.

The Academy's first president Joshua Reynolds, claimed that a painter's gift for invention was their power of committing a mental picture onto canvas. At the time, this form of artistic 'genius' was considered the exclusive preserve of men. Women artists were regarded as 'imitators' incapable of complex creativity. Here, Kauffman presents invention as a woman.

(Of the 36 founding members of the Royal Academy's of Art only two were women: Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser. It would be over 150 years before another woman was elected a member of the Academy)

Artemisia Gentileschi, Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting (La Pittura), 1638-1639, (oil on canvas)

Here, Gentileschi uses her own image to portray the allegorical figure of Pittura who she depicts in a working apron before an easel absorbed in the act of creation.

Artemisia Gentileschi Susanna and the Elders, 1638-1640, (oil on canvas)

I have written about these two paintings by Gentilseschi extensively here

For more on Gentileschi you can go here

    

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In the 17th century women writers, poets, playwrights and artists began to give voice to those questioning their secondary status and petitioning for women's rights. They argued that it was lack of education, not 'weak minds' that limited their opportunities. This fight for equality and access to education runs throughout the exhibition.

The first public art exhibition in Britain took place in London in 1760, and art shows soon became an important part of the city's social calendar. Women artists played an active part in this competitive world.

Kauffman is one of the few women artists of the 18th century whose profile has been sustained. Many others made names for themselves, but their careers are not well documented. 

Art critics of the time often criticised women for their 'weak'  figurative work, yet they were denied access to life-drawing classes. Painting for money was considered improper. After marriage, many switched their status from commercial to amateur.

Angelica Kauffman, The Return of Telemachus, 1775, (oil on canvas)

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In the 18th and 19th centuries, painting flowers was considered a suitably delicate pursuit for women. Imitating nature (rather than demonstrating creative or imaginative flair) was thought to be an appropriate outlet for women's artistic skills. Flowers were also at the heart of respectable hobbies like embroidery, botany and gardening. Many women were employed as professional illustrators, recording plant species for horticulturists and botanical publishers.

Augusta Innes Withers, An auricula in a pot with a wicker cache-pot, 1830, (watercolour and gum arabic)

Clara Maria Pope, Peony, 1822, (bodycolour on card)

Augusta Innes Withers, Crompton's Sheba Queen, (gooseberries), 1825, (watercolour on paper)

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From the 1850s women petitioned for equal rights to education and work, as well as women's suffrage.

Emily Osborn, Nameless and Friendless 'The rich man's wealth is his strong city: the destruction of the poor is their poverty', 1857, (oil on canvas)

Louise Jopling, Through the Looking Glass, 1875, (oil on canvas)

Anna Lea Merritt, Love Locked Out, 1890, (oil on canvas)

Louise Jopling, A Modern Cinderella, 1875, (oil on canvas)

Elizabeth Forbes, School is Out, 1889, (oil on canvas)

Marianne Stokes, The Passing Train, 1880, (oil on canvas)

Julia Margaret Cameron, The Return After Three Days, 1865, (photograph, albumen print on paper)

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Photography gave women new opportunities. Cameron was given a camera in 1863; within a year, she was elected to the Photographic Societies of London and Scotland.

Julia Margaret Cameron, Hypatia (marie Spartali), 1868, (photograph, albumen print on paper)

Women were excluded from enrolment at the Royal Academy Schools, Britain's principal art academy, until 1860. Laura Herford was the first woman admitted. She had submitted her work for consideration using only her initials and was assumed to be a man. Women were barred from the Academy's life-drawing classes until 1893. In 1871, the founding of the Slade School of Fine Art at University College London signalled a fundamental change of attitudes. From the outset, the Slade offered women an education on equal terms with men.

Laura Knight, Portrait Study, Girl's Profile, 1896, (charcoal on paper)

Ida Knox, Male Figure Seated, 1918, (oil on canvas)

With this study of a semi-draped male figure, Knox won joint first prize for figure painting at the Slade in 1918. Knox painted it in a mixed class. There were more women students than men at the Slade.

Elinor Adams, Female Seated Figure, 1906, (oil on canvas)

                                                    

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Being Modern:

The first two decades of the 20th century saw rapid change for women, with their rights, roles and opportunities evolving at an unprecedented pace. WWI signalled a decisive change for women's place in society and in 1918 after decades of campaining, some women finally gained the right to vote.

At the same time, the art world was also changing. New art groups and exhibiting societies rejected tradition and promoted modernist aesthetics. Instead of figurative realism, they privileged form, colour and experimentation. Many saw modernism as an opportunity for greater artistic freedom. However, despite growing liberalism in art and society, women artists still faced challenges. Women however, forged their own paths and pursued professional careers with purpose and confidence. 

Laura Knight, The Bathing Pool, 1912, (watercolour on paper)

In 1907, Knight and her husband moved to Cornwall. The scenery, company and working conditions nurtured her productivity. Knight began painting outdoors in the open air, and her sunlit scenes of leusure, sun-bathing and sea-bathing are free from academic convention. This watercolour has similarities to a large canvas exhibited at the RA in 1911. As an ambitious work showing women at ease with their bodies, it challenged conservatives expectations of women's art.

Laura Knight, A Dark Pool, 1917, (oil on canvas)

Laura Knight, At the Edge of the Cliff, 1917, (oil on canvas)

Laura Knight, My Lady of the Rocks, 1917-18, (oil on canvas)

Arna Airy, Shop for Machining 15-inch Shells: Singer Manufacturing COmpany, Clydebank, Glasgow, 1918, (oil on canvas)

Clare Atwood, Olympia in War Time: Royal Army Clothing Depor, 1918, (oil on canvas)

Clare Atwood, The Terrace Outside the Priest's House, 1919, (oil on canvas)

Atwood, who went by both 'Clare' and 'Tony', enjoyed a public life working for prestigious institutions and a gay private life. The artist openly identified as a lesbian, and from 1916, lived in a menage a trois with the actor, theatre director, producer and designer Edith Craig and writer and playwright Christabel Marshall. Here, Atwood shows the three partners at their home, the Priest's House, Kent. 

Gwen John, Self-portrait, 1902, (oil on canvas)

Gwen John, Chloe Boughton-Leigh, 1904-8, (oil on canvas)

To see more of Gwen John's work go here

Vanessa Bell, Still Life of Dahlias, Chrysamthemums and Begonias, 1912, (oil on board)

In 1905, Bell founded the Friday Club, offering young artists the opportunity to connect and exhibit. It led to the formation of the Bloomsbury Group, a collective of writers, artists and intellectuals based in London. Artist and critic Roger Fry, a central figure of the group, invited Bell to exhibit at his landmark Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition at the Grafton galleries in 1912. This work was painted around the same time. It was painted a period of experimentation for Bell. The flowers are given a geometric simplicity that reflects Bell's semi-abstract style at the time.

Vanessa Bell, Still Life on Corner of a Mantelpiece, 1914, (oil on canvas)

Bell's use of an unconventional low viewpoint, fractured, abstracted forms and bright colours show her exploring different techniques associated with 20th century art movements.

To see more of Bell's work go here and here

Dolores Courtney, Still Life, 1916, (oil on canvas)

Nina Hamnett, Still Life with a Blue Jug, 1917, (oil on canvas)

Nina Hamnett

Ethel Walker, Decoration: The excursion of Nausica, 1920, (oil on canvas)

From 1912, Walker's focus shifted to what she called her 'decorations'. She moved to a more symbolist aesthetic on a large scale. Here, Walker's scene is based on Book VI from Homer's Odyssey. While washing clothes with her attendants, Nausica encounters a shipwrecked Odysseus. Walker transports this episode to a peaceful utopia comprised almost exclusively of women. Walker often placed women at the centre of her works, celebrating their bodies and sexuality.

Ethel Walker, The Thames at Chelsea, (oil on canvas)

Ethel Wright, The Music Room, Portrait of Una Dugdale, 1912, (oil on canvas)

This is a portrait of suffragette and women's rights activist Una Dugdale. Wright shows Dyvak as cultured and sophisticated, dressed in green, a suffragette colour. Wright made the work the same year Duval made national news for her refusal to promise to obey her husband during their marriage vows. In 1913, Duval published a pamphlet, Love and Honour but Not Obey.

Una Dugdale DUval, Love and Honour but Not Obey, 1913

Sylvia Gosse, The Printer, 1915, (oil on canvas)

Sylvia Gosse, The Nurse, 1920, (oil on canvas)

Gosse's fascination with working women makes her art distinct. The model for this work is likely to be her sister Tessa, who served with the Scottish Women's Hospitals at the front in WWI and was decorated for her work.

Anna Airy, Study for the 'L press: forging the jacket of an 18-inch gun, Armstrong.' 1918, (oil on canvas)