43 minute read
Sociology
Department of Sociology
Faculty Adviser: Prof. Anthony Chen, Ph.D.
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Networking for Gender Justice:
Women’s Arts Organizations as Facilitators of Gender Equity in the Arts Industry
by Jade Davis
Introduction The later 20th century brought many drastic changes in the United States in terms of occupational sex segregation. In the 1970s, segregation began to decline substantially across the board as more women found their way into traditionally male-dominated careers, which continued into the 1980s and 1990s.1 The art industry was no exception, as women artists began to be nearly as visible and successful as their male counterparts in art-rich cities such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Artists such as Joan Mitchell, Judy Chicago, and Louise Bourgeois hit their strides and became some of the most well-known and well-paid artists of their time. At the same time, The Guerrilla Girls — masked artists who adopted names of deceased women artists — became some of the most outspoken critics of the treatment of female bodies in the largest museums, creating billboards with phrases such as “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?”2 Between this group of women and other efforts throughout the U.S., women had a voice in the art world, both becoming part of the mainstream and creating their own alternative spaces where they could be as politically and socially vocal as they wished.
However, this progression has slowed since the late 1990s, and the gender disparity persists in the arts today, something that contemporary sociologists, other researchers, and the media continue to examine. Like in many other professions that have traditionally been male-dominated, the number of women artists has increased slightly, but their pay, ease of success, and other individualized experiences are still gendered and inequitable. Recent article headlines such as “A New Study Shows That Most Artists Make Very Little Money, With Women Faring the Worst”3
1 Roos, P. A. & Stevens, L. M. (2018). Integrating Occupations: Changing Occupational Sex Segregation in the United States from 2000 to 2014. Demographic Research, 38, 127-154. dx.doi.org.turing.library.northwestern.edu/10.4054/DemRes.2018.38.5 2 Naked Through the Ages. (n.d.). https://www.guerrillagirls.com/naked-through-the-ages 3 Kinsella, E. (2017, November 29). A New Study Shows that Most Artists Make Very Little Money, with Women Faring the Worst.
and “The 4 Glass Ceilings: How Women Artists Get Stiffed at Every Stage of Their Careers”4 suggest that there is concern for all facets of equality for women in the arts, from pay to opportunities for career advancement. Research from government entities such as the National Endowment for the Arts finds that women visual artists earn on average 74 cents for each dollar their male counterparts make and that the earnings ratio of these artists declines with age. Women artists age 18–24 will earn 97 cents per dollar earned by men artists of the same age, but those 55–64 will earn just 66 cents per dollar that male artists of the same age will make.5
Although this collection of data is valuable for determining where to focus on mitigating gender inequality in the arts, most research has focused on the current state of inequitable environments, pay gaps, and lack of opportunities for women, rather than on how women first became more integrated into the art industry to begin with: what enabled women like Joan Mitchell and Judy Chicago to become well-known and successful. The addition of a historical perspective may elucidate the steps toward gender parity in the arts by identifying which aspects of an artist’s interactions with their surroundings and institutions have historically contributed to their successes or challenges. This could then determine how women can navigate through their art communities toward more equitable pay, gallery space, attention in larger galleries and the media, and increased monetary value of artworks by collectors and in auctions. My thesis is therefore a historical case study of Chicago’s art scene and its gender integration process, drawing mainly from the perspectives of women artists who were active in the art scene during this period of change between the 1970s and the 1990s. My research questions are as follows: 1. What institutional structures or independent actors allowed women artists in Chicago to become more integrated into the city’s mainstream art scene? 2. When did these changes occur, and why did they occur when they did? 3. How strongly were these changes led by the women artists themselves?
Research Design In order to understand the role of women’s art organizations, including cooperative galleries and more traditional galleries, I utilized a combination of archival research and semi-structured interviews. This combination was ideal to answer my research questions because the archival material provided a more objective background of what organizations existed, when, and how they were integrated in the community. The interviews, which primarily focused on artists, allowed me to hear first-hand from those in the art community about the organizations’ effects. With more time, I would have conducted more archival research in order to understand more deeply how each organization related to the larger community, as well as specific initiatives they took or exhibitions they held to support the women involved in their organizations. However, I was able to get much of this information from the interviews I conducted.
4 Halperin, J. (2017, December 15). The 4 Glass Ceilings: How Women Artists Get Stiffed at Every Stage of Their Careers. https://news. artnet.com/market/art-market-study-1179317 5 National Endowment for the Arts. (2019, April). Artists and Other Cultural Workers: A Statistical Portrait. Office of Research & Analysis.
Archival Research
I primarily used the sources I had to create a list of women artists’ organizations which were active in Chicago during the time period of focus and to understand generally how they functioned. I also found lists of artists involved in the first few years of each organization’s existence and any leadership or founders involved in the creation and running of the organizations, which I used to create a list of artists to contact for recruitment.
Sample and Recruitment
I conducted 13 semi-structured interviews using a non-random convenience sample.6 I spoke with 10 women artists who worked in Chicago from the 1970s through the 1990s and three women curators or art historians who worked among them or have conducted extensive archival research on their organizations. I used my archival sources to create a list of the first or founding members of Artemisia Gallery, ARC Gallery, and Woman Made Gallery, as I had access to lists of founding or primary members, as well as some lists of members or exhibitors for each year. I searched for current artist websites or other sources of contact information for the living members and interviewed all participants who responded to my email inquiries.
Interviews
The interviews lasted between 45 minutes and one hour and 45 minutes. They were all done over the phone except for one artist, whom I met at her studio in Chicago. The interview guide contained four sections, each detailing different aspects of interview participants’ experiences with Chicago’s art community, women artists, and women’s art groups (see Appendix). Some questions were specific to certain organizations, which I did not move forward with if the participant stated that they were not familiar with the organization. Probes were used to ask for clarification or examples.
Data Analysis
In order to analyze my data, I first identified and operationalized the dependent variable, or “navigating the city’s art scene.” I determined “navigating” to mean that a woman artist was able to create artwork regularly, whether it was their full-time career or they had another career or source of income: They did not stop working as an artist due to implicit or explicit gender-based discrimination, and they were able to show in a gallery on a semi-regular basis (at least every five years).
I defined “Chicago’s art scene” to mean the network of commercial galleries in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, as well as the related organizations for artists, including but not limited to women’s art organizations and others such as the Chicago Artists’ Coalition and the Chicago Public Art Group. Larger institutions, such as the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, are important aspects of the city’s art scene as a whole, especially considering the role of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in training many of Chicago’s most wellknown artists. However, I found through my research that most of Chicago’s artists were not represented in these museums during this time period and that it was not necessarily gendered, although the museums had a separate issue in their representation of women artists as a whole. Therefore, I excluded these institutions
from the analysis of women’s integration into the art scene as they are not relevant to a vast majority of the women involved in the women’s art organizations studied.
I listened to the 13 interview audio clips and transcribed relevant information from the respondents, keeping in mind possible ways that women artists could have been impacted by these organizations. If my hypothesis was supported, and if women’s art organizations did indeed play a significant role, I expected respondents to discuss themes mentioned in previous literature. At the same time, I kept in mind a set of alternative hypotheses that could also explain what allowed women artists in Chicago to become more involved in the community, unrelated to the existence of women’s art organizations. I used research on other industries and instances of women breaking into formerly male-dominated groups as well as research on other aspects of the art industry (including Art Worlds by Howard Becker) to inform these hypotheses. I transcribed any information from the interviews that could either support or refute these other hypotheses, in order to have a more well-rounded idea of how women could have navigated Chicago’s art scene outside of these women-specific institutions.
Empirical Analysis The current hypothesis posits that the presence of women’s art organizations in the 1970s through the 1990s in Chicago had a significant positive effect on women artists’ ability to navigate the art scene. The analysis of my interviews provides support for this hypothesis, suggesting that the organizations provided internal connections with other women artists and external connections to curators, gallery owners, and other actors, both of which were necessary components of success as a woman artist in the field.
Historical Background
According to archival research, as well as narratives from Chicago’s scholars and curators, the city’s first women’s art galleries in the period of interest began in April 1973, with the openings of Artemisia Gallery and ARC Gallery. These galleries were some of the first women-focused art spaces of their kind in the country. The Chicago art scene was also well-known at this time, from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, for its world-renowned School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It was also known in the national art scene for a group of artists known as the Chicago Imagists, as well as the “Hairy Who,” many of whom were graduates of the art school. Although several women were members of the Chicago Imagists, women artists in general were not a large part of the otherwise small art scene of the time.
Nearly all of the women who were part of Artemisia and ARC Galleries stated that one particular artist, a woman named Ellen Lanyon, was the catalyst of these groups. Lanyon had spent time in New York City and had encountered another gallery, Artists in Residence (AIR) Gallery, which inspired her. AIR was a cooperative gallery rather than a commercial gallery. Artists involved in the cooperative paid a membership fee to rent the gallery space together and take turns holding exhibitions in the gallery space. AIR was also the first gallery of this type in the U.S. that focused on women artists. Along with this gallery, Lanyon had worked with a feminist art critic and activist, Lucy Lippard, as well as other feminist artists who were working in New York City at the time.
Upon returning to Chicago, Lanyon
gathered a small group of recent graduates from the School of the Art Institute and other working women artists. They then began the initial recruitment process. However, too many women artists were interested in the cooperative gallery, and not enough spaces were available for one gallery. So, some artists branched off and created the second of the two galleries. Thus, Artemisia Gallery and ARC Gallery were opened in the same building and within one week of one another in the spring of 1973. Approximately 20 artists in each organization shared the lease, taking turns operating the gallery space and holding a two- to three-person show monthly.
Although Artemisia and ARC were the first women’s galleries in Chicago, they were not the first women artists’ organization. The National Women’s Caucus for Art opened a chapter in Chicago one year earlier, in 1972. Many artists were both involved in cooperative or commercial galleries and the Chicago Women’s Caucus for Art (CWCA). The organization was comprised of both women artists and others in the arts community, including art historians, curators, professors, and others. The CWCA held several exhibitions of its artists in women artist gallery spaces.
Artemisia and ARC Galleries were crucial institutions for many women artists in Chicago in the 1970s and 1980s. Their location on the north side of the city attracted artists and others in part due to their proximity to other galleries and museums at the time, including the initial location of the Museum of Contemporary Art, the N.A.M.E. Gallery, and the Randolph Street Gallery. However, due to their location on the north side, an indirect consequence was that the women who were drawn into these organizations were predominantly white women. At its creation, Artemisia Gallery had no members who were women of color; ARC Gallery had one. In part due to this lack of women-specific arts organizations that would function as well for women of color, the organization Sapphire and Crystals was created in 1987. Rather than a gallery space, it was a collective that served Black women artists who also exhibited in women artist gallery spaces. Several of these women were also part of the CWCA. In 1992, two women founded Woman Made Gallery under the premise that Chicago still did not provide the community that the city’s women artists needed. They felt that the cooperative structure of Artemisia and ARC Galleries was limiting and that the organizations did not provide enough exhibitions for women artists who were not members of the collective. Therefore, Woman Made Gallery was created as Chicago’s first commercial gallery that focused on women artists. It was unique among the other women’s arts organizations in that it had a physical space, unlike CWCA and Sapphire and Crystals, and that
it also allowed more women to become involved without necessarily needing to be a member and regularly contributing to the gallery financially, completely planning their own shows, or otherwise being involved in the running of the organization.
This overview of Chicago’s women’s organizations suggests that there was both a need for a community of women artists and an interest in creating said community. However, it also raises the following questions: How beneficial were each of these organizations to the women artists? “How did they help their members navigate the scene and perhaps become successful working artists?”
Findings and Interpretation
My interviews with the women artists who were involved in women’s art organizations suggest that in the beginning of the time period of interest, the early 1970s, most women artists in Chicago were unable to break into the city’s art scene. However, I find that these organizations were significant in allowing women to more easily navigate the city’s art scene, supporting my hypothesis. The organizations provided both internal and external connections that allowed women to create and show their work in a supportive environment and led them to networking opportunities to become more involved in the mainstream art scene.
Organizations as Sources of Internal Connections
Women’s art organizations from the 1970s to the 1990s provided a space where artists could create connections with other women artists to build a community within and separate from the mainstream art scene. One significant facet of these internal connections was that nearly all of the artists found that the women’s art organizations provided spaces for critiques or other dialogue that allowed women artists to develop their body of work in a productive and encouraging environment. The close community of women artists allowed for discussion about each artist’s body of work, as well as other discussions about the experience of being a woman artist in Chicago.
One artist discussed how Artemisia used a “feminist approach to conversation,” inspired by women’s rights activists at the time who were becoming more aware that they were often being interrupted by men around them. As they wanted to make the cooperative a space where everyone could speak without fear of interruption or overshadowing, they designed their meetings and conversations so that everyone would take turns speaking on the topic at hand. This artist also stated that after each exhibit, artists would meet and talk about the work. She and other participants lamented that other art communities they had been part of later in their careers did not have this opportunity to speak to one another and called the cooperatives a “giving, encouraging” space with “heartfelt … conversations” that kept artists “spiritually and intellectually alive.”
These organizations often held their artists to a high standard, which drove members to develop their work further than they may have otherwise. One participant said, “We held a high standard for exhibiting. The quality of your work and the presentation both had to be top-notch or [the organization’s founder] wasn’t going to help sell it.” This space for critique and collaboration even affected some artists who passed through the cooperatives and were not initially accepted into the group. One participant mentioned
an artist, now internationally renowned, who had interviewed for one of the cooperatives when it initially launched and had been turned down. She had said to the research participant, “I deserved to be turned down. My work was really crappy. I threw it out and started to do all different work and then got in [later]. You were absolutely right to turn me down.”
Several artists also stated that they began doing more experimental work, as they were inspired by how the women artists around them utilized themes and materials that they had not thought about before. They found that women’s galleries provided a space to do work that would not have been accepted in more traditional galleries. Topics that were seen as specific to women, or not universal enough, were welcomed in women’s art spaces:
The more places there are for women to show, the more opportunities they have to share their work … and talk about difficult topics, like menstruation. Nobody wants to talk about that. … You wouldn’t have a chance at a commercial gallery because they wouldn’t be able to sell it.
The participants provided mixed perspectives as to whether competition existed among the women in the organizations or if the space was completely collaborative and helpful. Half of the participants had no negative experiences with other women in terms of competing for resources, grants, or other shows in the area. They described the atmosphere as “warm” and “supportive,” even if many of the other artists were mostly invested in their own work. The other half of the women stated that since the art world itself was competitive, all members in the cooperative had various reasons for membership. They said that some members had ulterior motives for joining or only had regard for their own work and well-being. One participant stated that there were “slight issues of dominance and that some people were ‘stronger’ than others.” Overall, however, the members cheered each other on and supported each other to get shows in other commercial galleries.
Only one participant gave an example of a specific negative experience she had with another artist in the gallery:
One day, a big curator from New York came to the gallery and asked to see my work. And [the offending artist] was the only one in the gallery. We had hired someone to also sit in the gallery … [who] told me the story. This artist just told her that there were no visuals of my work, which was totally untrue.
She showed [the curator] her own work instead. She’s a big deal artist in
Chicago now.
The interviewee said that other than this member, everyone in the gallery was “very helpful, willing to help out, and [gave her] a good feeling in the gallery.” This was the only time a participant recounted a negative social experience within the cooperative community. This anecdote also suggests that several such opportunities existed for the women artists like the
curator visit, but some manipulated the situations to prioritize their own work and career trajectory over those of others.
Two of the women I interviewed from Artemisia and ARC galleries had not gone to graduate school; most of the others had attended the School of the Art Institute. Both of these artists stated that the community was like graduate school to them, and one other who had gone to graduate school likened her experience in the gallery to that of her graduate education. One felt like “her work developed and everything else developed with it.” Another stated that her “work kept changing and evolving from being in the cooperative. [She was] interacting with other people’s work, exchanging ideas.” She also stated that when it was an artist’s turn to be part of a two-person show in the gallery, this became an especially valuable opportunity to work with another artist and think about their ideas and how their bodies of work could relate. They would “bounce back and forth, project [themselves]. ... There was a lot of collaboration.”
Organizations as Sources of External Connections
Not only was the experience of being involved in a women’s art organization helpful in providing a sense of community and camaraderie for female artists, but it also provided opportunities to connect with outside actors and create relationships needed to get to the “next level” of success in becoming an artist. All of the artists stated that the organizations they were involved in were not meant to be their only source of networking, or in the case of the cooperatives and galleries, gallery representation. However, they understood that the connections they could potentially make with curators, gallery owners, and others in power were important in showing at a commercial gallery later, a goal shared by most artists.
Several interviewees stated that they were able to get commercial gallery representation as a direct result of either exhibiting in a women’s gallery space or knowing someone who visited the organization. Some took these opportunities for connection into their own hands. One participant said, “From Artemisia, we had a woman showing at another gallery. I said to myself, ‘If they’re interested in her work, surely they’ll be interested in my work.’ I contacted [the gallery owner] in New York, and I got into her gallery.”
All of the artists involved in Artemisia and ARC Galleries said that the location of the galleries was significant in allowing the largest possible audience to attend their shows. Both galleries, before they moved to other locations, were initially in the same building as one another, along with several other relatively well-known galleries at the time. In addition, they were on the same block as the Museum of Contemporary Art’s initial location. The artists in these cooperatives coordinated their exhibitions to open on Friday nights, similar to several other large and well-respected galleries in the area such as the Museum of Contemporary Art and N.A.M.E. Gallery,
so that the audiences from other galleries and museums would spill over into their own exhibition openings. The smaller art community in Chicago at this time only served to aid this closeness, as one could visit nearly all of Chicago’s most prominent galleries in one night. One artist stated that a gallery owner saw her work and offered her a show at their gallery as a direct result of one of these nights. Another participant said that the president of the Museum of Contemporary Art had visited the gallery during her exhibition opening and was interested enough in her work to commission a portrait of his family from her that evening.
In addition, the organizations provided programming that invited visiting artists into the spaces, provided outreach into the community, and allowed some connections with other galleries. One of the cooperatives hired a director after their first building move to help coordinate exhibitions and seek opportunities for artists, including assistance with grants and exhibitions at commercial galleries. The other cooperative began a resource center earlier in its time in Chicago and had also used this opportunity to provide its artists with connections to other artists in the area. The organizations invited successful artists, mainly from New York City, to show in their gallery spaces or hold artist talks. Most of the participants stated that they did not remember their organizations interacting much with other women’s organizations. However, they would occasionally have shows at non-women-specific galleries, art centers, and other organizations in the Chicagoland area, allowing the artists to expand their potential audience further.
Finally, the organizations with physical gallery spaces provided an area to show artwork that did not otherwise exist for most women, creating a space for others in the scene to see their work and invite them to show in their own galleries. One woman stated that for most women artists:
Their work [didn’t] fit into the gallery. … At the time, getting into a gallery in
Chicago was difficult. You had to be recognized, the work would have to be sellable, or in some way the gallery would have wanted to risk investing in promoting your career.
It’s a very difficult path. Another participant described the women’s organization spaces as “opening up the doors to show what [women’s] work was like ... it was like a breath of fresh air.” Gallery spaces that focused on women artists, especially the cooperative spaces which guaranteed their members an exhibition, allowed women to show their work without feeling pressure to make it “fit” into the gallery and be similar to the art of male artists at the time.
Other Findings
One significant finding that only some of the women interviewed directly mentioned — but was clear in the structure of the organizations and the feminist movements of the decades — was that race played an important role in the success and the makeup of the women artists and galleries at the time. Only one of the interview participants was a woman of color, and she stated that she did not have any negative experiences with women’s organizations due to her racial identity. However, most of the women’s organizations at the time were made up of predominantly white women and to some extent were created to benefit mainly white women. As previously stated, the first two cooperatives, Artemisia Gallery and ARC Gallery, were mostly white at their creation, with Artemisia gallery having no members who
were women of color and ARC Gallery having one. A member of one of these galleries stated that, “It was a very white group. … The school [of the Art Institute] at the time was very white.”
It is important to consider the possibility that these numbers were merely reflective of the number of women of color who were working as artists in the 1970s through the 1990s. However, several wellknown working artists of the time were women of color, mainly Black women. One artist discussed how there were several successful Black women artists she admired: “I think Black women in the ’70s were hot stuff. They were being shown in the ’80s as well. … They were being recognized, maybe more so than Black male artists.” Black women artists and others may have found other avenues for success that were not the predominantly white women’s organizations. Alternatively, they may have been disenfranchised with the women’s movements of the time, which had historically been created by and for wealthy white women. Organizations for women of color, such as Sapphire and Crystals, founded in 1987, were created to help fill this gap; according to a current member, founder Marva Jolly “had expressed concerns about the lack of opportunity for African American female artists to exhibit. … Rather than wait around for someone to discover them, [she wanted to] begin to create shows and opportunities.” However, it is still not clear how exactly Chicago’s women of color artists navigated their communities before and during this period. The current research mainly focuses on white women artists and therefore does not fully and accurately depict the experiences of women of color in Chicago who were attempting to navigate the art scene at the same time.
Another theme discussed by several women artists was the idea of the “male aesthetic” versus the “female aesthetic” of visual art. One woman artist said that there was a “very specific female aesthetic that was so gorgeous but not respected at the time” and that women’s art was most often seen as separate and lesser by male artists, curators, dealers, and the art scene overall. Men’s work was described as “aggressive” and “minimalist,” using heavier materials and angular edges as well as what were described as “universal ideas.” Women’s art, conversely, was described as being more specific to feminist or feminine themes, ideologies, or perspectives, which was often brought up as a possible reason that women’s work wasn’t being shown as often. Women’s art was also described as using “fabric, paper, ethereal materials” and being “softer, more emotional, using materials that used to be attributed to craft but were being used in an extremely unusual way.” Artists also described more “feminine” work as shaking up the status quo and critiquing the idea that only certain materials should be used in a certain way. They describe this as one of the positive results of the feminist movement as a whole, for women’s work and the art world overall. Several participants stated that women artists were very much aware of this divide:
These weren’t women artists who were chasing any kind of trend. … They weren’t interested in any way in fitting in, but just describing what was in their heart and soul. … Of course they knew that, but they weren’t going to chase a different aesthetic.
It is not clear whether this gendered difference in aesthetic was a cause of women’s exclusion from the art scene or whether it was a consequence of it. Nor is it clear whether this difference was truly as
widespread as it seemed or if the “softer, more emotional” art was also a gender essentialist perspective supported by both men and women artists. In any case, women artists knew that their work was not respected. Nevertheless, they did not let their knowledge of the dominant trends in the art scene or the judgment of the male art lens impact their art production.
A final trend seen among the interviewees was that nearly all of the women artists saw the difficulties that women artists experienced as not only due to their gender, but also other factors. Several mentioned that being a successful artist in Chicago was a matter of having a strong personality or “grit,” traits they believed women artists in particular may have had a harder time with. Other participants lamented the difficulty of being an artist in Chicago in general and stated that it was seen across the board as lesser or secondary to the art and artists in New York City. Finally, many artists stated that a major factor in the success of women artists depended on their financial status nearly as much as their gender and that the disparity in wealth among artists led to infighting among women artists themselves. This trend parallels that of the women lawyers studied by Pringle et al., in that successful artists acknowledged the difficulty of the field but said that learning how to “play the game” and developing traits such as ambition and time management would often suffice in overcoming structural barriers.7
Many participants cited individual personality, interest, and ability of women artists — both their own and others’ — as defining factors in their success. One artist said of herself, “I find the whole art of getting into galleries difficult. … I don’t have the right personality to persist in the quest for the gallery. You have to have a certain persona, a perseverance. … You have to invest the time and energy to get into a gallery.” Others said that many of the women in organizations, who often self-defined as feminists, were “angry at what was going on” in the art scene, which fueled their drive. However, some of these participants also acknowledged that the right personality and perseverance were not enough and that they knew many women artists who worked hard but were still not successful, as other factors were at play.
One of these factors, which was shared by nearly all interviewees, was the difficulty of being a Chicago artist in general. Most artists described the art scene at the time as being very small and insular. Most attention given to Chicago’s art scene in this period, the early 1970s and the decade before, was directed toward the Art Institute of Chicago and its school, as well as the Chicago Imagists and the Hairy Who. However, participants also cited these groups as being an inspiration for women artists, as there were “several” women, even “half” of the group, involved.
This is especially interesting, as the Hairy Who, made up of six artists, included two women; the Chicago Imagists, with 13 total members at their creation, only included three women. The true number of women involved in these organizations was small — less than half of the total members. Still, these were exceptionalized or sensationalized by other women artists who would have otherwise had very few women in the field to look up to, especially in Chicago’s otherwise barren art scene.
Chicago’s art world was most often compared to New York City, the city with the most well-known art scene. Many artists, including the women interviewed, saw Chicago as a stepping stone to New York, which was the “dream” city to get a gallery or show and where the best and most successful artists ended up. One participant said, “Unless you were from New York, really knew New York, and had a lot of family and money to really support you, it was almost impossible.” This combination of needing financial resources and being in New York City to be a successful artist was often stated as an indisputable, if not unfortunate, fact. The same artist said later, “Somebody said to me, you gotta go and buy drinks for these curators. At the time they were $8 drinks. In 1979, these were really expensive drinks.” This was one of the many examples given that heavily suggested that financial ability was tied to success for women. This problem persisted after the creation of women’s art organizations but was especially prevalent before their arrival in Chicago.
One artist stressed the importance of having both the “right personality” and wealth. She discussed a friend, now internationally renowned, who was the hardest working artist the interviewee had ever known. She “had the money to spend the time to do it” and was able to take commissions that lost her many thousands of dollars in transportation and material costs during the process of becoming more well-known. Another participant relayed a difficult experience of looking over a 20th anniversary catalogue for her organization to see which artists were still alive and working. Everyone who was a living, successful artist was, she said, “married, with professional husbands, or they came from very wealthy families who were supporting them. It was a real hard one for me to swallow. Most of them were in New York, with pretty well-to-do families.”
A pattern with these wealthy women that caused rifts in the art scene was that many of them gained their wealth from marrying well-off, professional men. One participant said:
The women that I know that really have careers. … They were all married to very successful husbands who were making a lot of money; [the women] didn’t have jobs. They spent 100% of their time doing their art. … They were able to spend a lot of time in the studio, and that makes all the difference.
According to the women artists who had families and were able to be supported by their husbands, this perspective was harmful and degrading. Some of the women’s organizations and other galleries often looked down upon women with wealthier families as being lesser than the women who lived in the city and were not married. This view extended, as well, to those who lived in the suburbs, stayed home and took care of their children, or did not hold a career outside of their art. One artist recounted her experience of going to a meeting of members of her organization after it closed and discussing
“One of the women said, ‘I don’t think we should count her, after all, she was rich and married.” So,
I stepped in and said, ‘I think we should applaud her, because she was rich. Despite being a socialite, she managed to figure out a way to have a career and do important work.’ ” Some artists suggested that this divide was due in part to a greater societal bias against women who attempted to work and also have families and children.
Women’s arts organizations welcomed artists of all types and backgrounds: both those who lived and worked in the city and those whose homes were the suburbs, and with a variety of financial resources available. However, the above suggests a split in the relationships between artists considered wealthy and artists who were not, undermining the suggestion that the connections among artists were an essential part of what made these organizations successful. More research is needed to fully understand the dynamics between those with more resources and those with less, as the connections between artists may have indeed been mainly with others of a similar economic background. Nevertheless, my interviews suggest that women’s arts organizations may have provided a means for partial democratization of Chicago’s art scene for women artists. Other than Sapphire and Crystals, most of these spaces predominantly served white women artists and therefore were not necessarily providing full, equitable community among all of Chicago’s female artists. However, the spaces allowed for the gap to be bridged to allow women artists with fewer financial resources to be in the same space, doing the same type of work as wealthy women.
Future Directions
Chicago’s women’s arts organizations overall had a lasting impact on the community. Although Artemisia closed in 2003 for financial reasons, the other four organizations researched are currently in operation. ARC Gallery and Woman Made Gallery are still exhibiting, and ARC Gallery remains a cooperatively structured gallery. Chicago’s Women’s Caucus for Art and Sapphire and Crystals are also active to some extent. Several shows and exhibitions, including a recent exhibition at the Glass Curtain Gallery in 2018,8 have been created to archive and remember the legacy of these women artists and organizations, and art historians have become dedicated to better understanding these groups and their effect on Chicago’s art history. Future work could be done to continue focusing on both the organizations and Chicago’s female artists and art history more broadly. In addition, the importance of financial resources to women artists, as suggested by my data, should be explored further. Other possible directions include investigating how women artists’ perceptions of gender and gender exploration affected their experiences and the work they produced, looking further into other non-women-specific arts organizations in the city, or researching what specifically pushed women artists out of careers in the arts. ■
8 Glass Curtain Gallery’s show, Where the Future Came From, was open from November 2018 through February 2019. It showcased projects and programming related to women’s organizations such as Woman Made Gallery and Sapphire and Crystals as well as others including Chicago Women’s Graphics Collective, SisterSerpents, and Mujeres Mutantes.
Appendix
Interview Guide
What was the participant’s role in the Chicago art scene? • How long did you live in Chicago? How did you begin working there? • Why did you stay there? [If no longer in Chicago:] why did you leave? • [If an artist:] what media, themes, ideas were prevalent in your work at the time? • [If a curator, museum director, gallery owner:] what was your role in your organization? • How would you describe Chicago’s art scene? • What did you like or dislike about it? What would you have liked to see happen that wasn’t happening?
What were the participant’s views on being a woman artist in Chicago? • Do you think women artists faced obstacles in their work? • [If so:] what obstacles? Were these barriers removed? How? • Since you’ve been aware of Chicago’s art history, when do you think it was the most difficult time to be a woman artist in Chicago? • [If a specific time period or other suggestion of difficulty for women artists:] did you see a change in this difficulty? Was there a time in which it became easier for women artists to be successful? • Why do you think this occurred? • Do you think this was specific to Chicago, or was this the case everywhere? • [If specific:] what makes Chicago unique? • [If everywhere:] how did this reflect the dynamics across the nation? • Do you think Chicago changed at the same rate as other cities? • How easy do you think it was to be a successful artist as a woman in Chicago when you were living/working there? • Do you know of any examples of women artists trying to break into the scene but failing? Why do you think this happened? • Do you think there was a time while you were there in which the ability to become a successful woman artist changed in difficulty? • How would you describe a successful artist? • What do you think separated a successful woman artist from an unsuccessful one?
How did the participant interact with women’s arts organizations? • Were you part of any women’s art groups or organizations? Describe the group and your role in it. [If not part of a group, describe groups they worked with in their careers, or were familiar with.] • Why was this group founded? Why was it focused on women? • [If they are a founder:] did you personally experience the problems that led to this group needing to be founded? • Were there other efforts, to your knowledge, to create groups that failed immediately? • What types of people were members of, or attracted to, this group? Who did you surround yourself with? • How much did you lean on each other for support? Were members often collaborating and networking, or did many keep to themselves? • Was it competitive? Were many women fighting for the same resources or shows? • How would you describe the initial success of the organization? • Did you feel like Chicago’s art scene was ready for its presence? Was it easy to get others involved, or did you have a difficult time getting interest? • How did you advertise? How were artists able to become involved? • How did the organization sustain itself financially? Did it have major benefactors, or was it financed by the members? • Did this group interact with other organizations (from other smaller, independent galleries to large museums)? • How was your organization viewed among these other organizations? How was it viewed in the larger artist community? • Was there any mentorship (official or unofficial) in your organization? • How much did men, artists or otherwise, interact with the group? • How much do you feel like your organization/other organizations around you affected how women artists in Chicago engaged with the community? • What aspects of these organizations were most influential? • Were you part of any other art groups that weren’t focused on women? • What were some similarities and differences between these groups? • Were any of the people you knew in these groups also in women-focused groups? • How did these groups interact with women-focused groups? • Were there other groups you weren’t part of that were focused on supporting artist women? • [If in a group:] how were these groups similar and different to your own? • How did these groups operate? • Did you or others around you feel these groups were successful in supporting artist women? • How would you describe the difference between a cooperative and a regular gallery? • Do you think your organization would’ve been different (received differently, operated differently, would you have enjoyed it as much, etc.) if it was a gallery rather than a cooperative? • If familiar with ARC and Artemisia: • ARC and Artemisia were created around the same time. How were they similar and different?
• Did they fulfill the same needs or niches? • Were you or others you knew active at both? • How was the communication between the two organizations? Did they ever collaborate? • ARC and Artemisia are often described as “alternative spaces.” What do you think this meant in Chicago’s art community at the time? • If familiar with Artemisia: • What were your reactions to the news that Artemisia was closing? • Why do you believe it shut down? • If familiar with ARC: • What do you think ARC did to be able to stay open in Chicago that other groups (Artemisia) weren’t able to do? • If familiar with Chicago Women’s Caucus for Art: • How did the Caucus function as an organization? How was it different to other organizations with permanent spaces? • If familiar with Sapphire and Crystals: • How would you compare Sapphire and Crystals to other women’s arts organizations working at the time? • How do you feel about the group’s media coverage? • If familiar with Woman Made: • Woman Made was created several years after Artemisia and ARC. Was it created as an additional organization that filled the same niche but for a different audience? Or was it created to fulfill a need that these groups weren’t covering? • What were other similarities and differences between Women Made and other groups?
How did the participant feel about other aspects of being a woman artist? • How did you notice the media talking about women artists and their work? • What role did the media play in how well [your work and] the work of artists around you was known? • [If in an organization:] did having alternative spaces like [organization] provide name recognition in the media that audiences could connect to that wouldn’t exist otherwise? • How many of the women artists you knew were able to show at galleries and museums? • Were any of them showing as a result of being at [organization]? • Why do you think this is? • Did this change over time? • Were there any other people, organizations, or institutions that you believe had an influence on the ability of women artists to be successful in Chicago? • Were these more influential, in your experience, to your success/the success of women artists around you than women artists’ groups? • If [your organization] did not exist, how do you think you would have navigated Chicago’s art community? • Do you think it would have been possible at the time?
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