Voyaging Out: British Women Artists from Suffrage to the Sixties

by Carolyn Trant

In this revealing chronicle of a fascinating period of social change, artist Carolyn Trant examines the history of women artists in modern Britain, filling in the gaps in traditional art histories. Introducing the lives and works of a rich network of neglected women artists, Voyaging Out sets these alongside such renowned presences as Barbara Hepworth, Laura Knight, and Winifred Nicholson. In an era of radical activism and great social and political change, women forged new relationships with art and its institutions. Such change was not without its challenges, and with acerbic wit Trant delves into the gendered makeup of the avant-garde and the tyranny of artistic “isms.”


In Virginia Woolf’s first novel The Voyage Out (1915) her female heroine strives toward a realization of her sense of self, asking what being a woman might mean. In the decades after women won the vote in Britain, the fortunes of women artists were shaped by war, domesticity, continued oppressions, and spirited resistance. Some succeeded in forging creative careers; others were thwarted by the odds stacked against them. Weaving devastating individual stories with spirited critique, Voyaging Out reveals this hidden history.

Genres: Nonfiction, Art

304 pages, Hardcover

First published October 8, 2019

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book serves as a primer of sorts to uncover lesser or unknown female artists of early- to mid-20th century Britain, many of whom could have been (should have been, or may well turn out to be) major, hitting on a few who did "make it" to some degree along the way despite everything. I, for one, came to it never having heard of most of them, even those mentioned on the flap that were meant to be familiar: Winifred Nicholson and Laura Knight, to name a few.

Re: Nicholson:

“She painted large landscapes with the same simplicity of vision as her still lifes. ‘I don’t want anything in the world,’ she wrote to a student and friend. ‘I just like existing every minute, and watching things coming and things going, and then coming again, like storms and sunshine and then storms again. I don’t want anything at all for the simple reason that I have everything, or rather, which is the same thing, everything has me.’”

While the book lends itself to being dipped into here and there, I enjoyed it straight through, the chronology gently nudging me along the shore of this era like a piece of wood afloat in the shallow water waves of the sea, not to deposit me anywhere specifically, but maybe as a reminder of what I’m floating in, that there is more, much more (more eras, more countries) and in fact there is a great expanse of sea (seas!), of art, all around, as far from shore as one wishes to go. Voyage out, young man.

With over a hundred color images--on nice thick paper btw--it tells of how life (or men, or society, you know the things) often got in the way of creation itself, let alone success, dashing off anecdotes and intriguing description, uncovering secrets and revealing the desires and *work* of hundreds of women by name or association (Dora Carrington and the Bloomsbury group, for example), telling just enough, I thought, to keep it all moving at a pretty good clip.

I took note of many artists–Peggy Angus, Mary Newcomb, Enid Marx, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Frances Richards, Nicolette Devas, Barbara Hepworth (who I *have* heard of)–for further internetting and to maybe bring up cleverly at parties. One of my favorite random bits from the book was learning of the "convoluted and wordy" titles to Mary Newcomb's paintings: These Sheep Find It Necessary to Cross the Bridge and Some Bees Do Not Die but Remain on Their Backs Confused. They seem to be of a kind with album titles like, This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About, or Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven. More of this, please. More of everything in this book.

[Mairead · Rating 3 out of 5]

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