Ladies First!

Women Artists from Styria 1850–1950

25.09.2020 - 19.09.2021

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Duration

25.09.2020 - 19.09.2021

Location

Neue Galerie Graz

Curators

Gudrun Danzer and Günther Holler-Schuster

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About the
Exhibition

The female art of Styria has never been analysed and presented in detail, so this project sets out to do so.


Further information


Open House: 26.09.2020, 10am - 5 pm, free admission

Traditionally, women's art has not been given the same opportunities as men's art to become known and recognised. In Styria, the situation of women who aspired to work as artists did not differ fundamentally from the rest of Austria or Europe. Since the Enlightenment, theories were spread which assigned the spiritual – and thus art – to the masculine principle, while nature and the physical were assigned to the feminine. The effects of these theories rippled throughout the entire system of art. Women were denied the ability to possess genius and inventiveness – the very prerequisites for artistic creation. 

At the same time, it was with the dawn of the Enlightenment, too, that women’s call for the same human and civil rights as those granted to men began. In the second half of the 19th century, this emancipation movement led to an increasing number of women overcoming resistance to take up the profession of independent artist. From around the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, women had a major influence on art movements such as Austria’s ‘Atmospheric Realism.’ 

Nonetheless, an art system shaped by men systematically marginalised women’s art creation: works by women were exhibited less, discussed, purchased and researched by art historians less. The result was and is that women’s art plays a subordinate role in our cultural memory, even today. 

The stated goal of the exhibition Ladies First! is to counteract this general suppression of women’s art. Presenting the works of around 60 female artists, the show informs us of their life-stories, of the conditions under which they worked. In this way, the Neue Galerie Graz continues its tradition of correcting our view of history and of rehabilitating forgotten positions. The exhibition and accompanying catalogue offer for the first time a survey of women’s art in Styria from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century. They invite us to revisit already familiar female artists such as Marie Egner, Friederike Koch-Langentreu, Ida Maly or Vevean Oviette, and to discover previously unknown ones such as Anna Lynker, Marianne Stokes or Mara Schrötter-Malliczky. 

The project was developed in the awareness that it is absurd to place one sex above the other hierarchically, and in the hope that it may thus contribute to true equality between women and men. The theme will be continued in May 2021 with an exhibition drawing on the international holdings in the Neue Galerie Graz collection, which will cover the period spanning the 1970s to the present day.

Glimpses

Gruppenfoto,

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Alwine Hotter, „Phantastische Folterszene“, ca. 1920,

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Anna Lynker, „Orientalischer Markt“, 1866,

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Anny Dollschein, "Stillleben mit Puppe", ca. 1935,

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Assunta Arbesser, „Blumenstillleben“, 1922,

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Elly Klingatsch, „Materialstudie”, vor 1937,

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Emilie Hallavanya, „Jack Russell Terrier“, vor 1907,

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Emilie Hallavanya, „Selbstbildnis im Atelier”, ca. 1905,

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Emilie Schmäck, „Szene in einem Biedermeier-Interieur“, ca. 1850,

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Emmy Paungarten, „Selbstporträt als Halbakt“, 1912,

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Ernestine Kirchsberg, „Meran”, ca. 1885,

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Friederike Koch-Langentreu, „Holländische Mädchen am Strand“, 1911,

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Friederike Koch-Langentreu, „Lesende Dame in Weiß“, 1900,

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Gertrud Ring, „Alchemie des Blutes“, 1935,

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Grete Martiny-Holzhausen, „Chinesin“, ca. 1930,

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Grete Paunovic-Zahrastnik, „Die Mutter der Künstlerin“, 1930er-Jahre,

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Grete Wilhelm, „Stadt“, ca. 1940,

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Gudrun Baudisch, „Frauenkopf (Modellnr. 407)“, 1928,

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Hedwig Krönig, „Stillleben mit Waage und Milchflasche“, ca. 1920,

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Hedwig, Tax-Hochhauser, „Junge Dame in Blau (Berlin)“, 1935,

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Ida Maly, „Trübe Ahnungen (Selbstportrait)“, 1928-30,

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Mara Schrötter-Malliczky, Plakat „Mirus Antinikotin“, 1919,

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Marianne Fieglhuber-Gutscher, „Weiblicher Akt mit Blumenvase”, 1935,

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Marianne Stokes, „Melisande“, 1895,

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Marie Auersperg, „Vase mit Blumen“, 1840er-Jahre,

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Marie Baselli, “Trauer”, ca. 1919,

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Marie Baselli, „Weibliches Bildnis in rotem Kleid”, ca. 1920,

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Marie Egner, "Blühendes Mohnblumenfeld", ca. 1896,

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Marie Egner, „In der Pergola”, ca. 1910,

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Marta Elisabet Fossel, „Spinne”, 1922,

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Norbertine Bresslern-Roth, „Elefanten“, 1934,

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Olga Granner-Milles, "Selbstbildnis mit Schwester", Paris, 1900,

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Olga Holzhausen, „Porträt Margarethe Holzhausen“, ca. 1915,

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Stephanie Glax, „Selbstporträt“, ca. 1908,

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Mara Schrötter-Malliczky, Plakat "Mirus. Antinikotin“ (überarbeitet), 1919,

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Susanne Wenger, „Der besoffene Matrose“, ca. 1950,

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Susanne Wenger, „Traumgesichte – Der wilde Stier“, 1943/44,

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Vevean Oviette, „Komposition (Chimäre)“, 1952,

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Vevean Oviette, „Sitzender Frauenakt“, ca. 1950/51,

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Willy Badl, „Kakteen”, ca. 1935,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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Ausstellungsansicht „Ladies First!“, 2020,

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