A Woman’s Eye, Her Art: Reframing the narrative through art and life

by Drusilla Modjeska

When a woman makes art, what does she see? When she picks up her brush and looks in the mirror? When she takes off her clothes and paints herself naked? Or when she raises her camera and turns it towards another woman, a model naked there in front of her? And how is she seen when she turns to face the men, the artists, her colleagues, her friends, her lovers?

A Woman's Eye, Her Art looks back to the lives and art of European modernist women who recast the ways in which women's bodies could be seen - from the self-portraits of Paula Modersohn-Becker, to the Surrealist Claude Cahun who exposed the masquerades of femininity, to the radical nudes of photo-artists Lee Miller and Dora Maar. Alongside them in Paris during the first decades of the twentieth century were many artist-women, their friends and colleagues, including Clara Westhoff-Rilke and Gabriele M�nter, Leonora Carrington and Meret Oppenheim. In this book, Drusilla Modjeska examines why these women still matter and, in the vein of her seminal and bestselling work Stravinsky's Lunch, connects their past to our present.

This beautiful book, richly illustrated and elegantly written is about the spirit it took for these artist-women to step out on that path, and the courage it took to stay there. It is the story of what they saw, and how they were seen as they crashed against the hypocrisies that are embedded deep in the structures of society. And it is about hard-fought freedoms as in their different ways they changed the landscape of the art world and reframed the narrative.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Australia

Audible Audio

Published September 30, 2025

About the author

Drusilla Modjeska was born in England and lived in Papua New Guinea before arriving in Australia in 1971. She studied at the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales completing a PhD which was published as Exiles at Home: Australian Women Writers 1925-1945 (1981).

Modjeska's writing often explores the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction. The best known of her work are Poppy (1990), a fictionalised biography of her mother, and Stravinsky's Lunch (2001), a feminist reappraisal of the lives and work of Australian painters Stella Bowen and Grace Cossington Smith. She has also edited several volumes of stories, poems and essays, including the work of Lesbia Harford and a 'Focus on Papua New Guinea' issue for the literary magazine Meanjin.

In 2006 she was a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sydney, "investigating the interplay of race, gender and the arts in post-colonial Papua New Guinea".

Reviews

[Zoe MacDonald-Mair · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was given to me for my birthday by a friend, and I loved seeing Julie Rraps work included as I had actually seen disclosures with the same friend in Sydney (which my photo of the exhibit was censored by instagram for nudity). This is a beautifully written and researched book, staying true to the title including mostly all female art, and relooking at significant periods exploring the tension between muses and the 'names'. Most impactful for me was Claude Cahun & Marcel Moore who in their midlife really put their surrealist leanings to the work creating art to undermine the German occupation - pretty fucking metal. Also loved Lee Miller's severed breasts on a plate - about as punchy as you can get about sexual objectification. I have completed the loop on this book by giving said friend a book on Chantal Joffe for her birthday. Would love to see Modjeska take the same approach to another artistic period.

[Barbara Macauley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Germany invaded Jersey July 1940

German soldiers on the beach seen from the window of La Rocquaise 1942
Photo Page 370, Poem p371

Alarm! ALARM!
Alarm! ALARM!
-You endure ENDLESS war games, times of need, you worry deeply about your loved ones.
- For what purpose?
So that you don’t have time to THINK AND REFLECT.

Translated in Jackson title “Paper Bullets p70. from ( Soldat)
Jeffrey H Jackson, Paper Bullets, Algonquin Books, 2021.
… … …
“Claude Cahun page 434
“ …
It is most important that we be aware that we have limits and we understand the fragility of our liberty, and of our integrity. What are we going to do about it?”

[Nola · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't familiar with the female artists mentioned in the first part of this book, which I found interesting. Having read John Richardson's 3 volumes on Picasso, Roland Penrose's books, Lee Miller and Dora Maar's books, the 2nd half of this book was a refresher on these artists forging their own paths against the structures of society at those times. A good read, a well-structured book.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

A needed book. A reminder of what can be done and all that is still left to do.

[Brenda Rosser]

completely eye opening

[Jamie Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was one of the most incredible books on art that I have ever read! harrowing, exhilarating, educational, inspiring! just brilliant. I recommend everyone read this.