Gladys Hynes (1888-1958), A Penny for the Guy.
The Ambulatory at The Mercers’ Company
6 Frederick’s Place, London, EC2R 8AB
3 December 2018 – 23 March 2019
The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery at the University of Leeds
Parkinson Building Woodhouse Lane, Leeds LS2 9JT
9 April 2019 – 27 July 2019
Curated by Sacha Llewellyn, ‘Fifty Works by Fifty British Women Artists 1900 – 1950’, will mark the 100th anniversary of the Representation of the People’s Act. This will be the inaugural exhibition at the newly restored Ambulatory at the Worshipful Company of Mercers (City of London) and then travel to The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery at the University of Leeds.
Through a heterogeneous collection of painting and sculpture by fifty artists, the exhibition will pay tribute to the extraordinary cultural production of women in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century. Despite the inequality of opportunity, patronage and critical attention, many female artists skillfully navigated careers in the art world, producing powerful works that reflected their daily lives and experiences.
Including portraits and self-portraits, landscapes and cityscapes, industrial scenes and images of war, the exhibition will consider the ways in which ‘feminine’ virtues and values were shifting and contested in 20th century visual culture. Indeed, the purpose of the exhibition is not to try and impose a false homogeneity on women artists, but to explore the diverse range of traditions and styles in which they worked. By addressing the long-undervalued contributions of women to the art of 20th-Century Britain, ‘Fifty Works by Fifty British Women Artists 1900 – 1950’ will pay tribute to artists who not only created remarkable artworks but also generated a momentum towards a more egalitarian art world.
