Today was the opening day of the Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920 show at the Tate - which was wonderful. The emphasis is on professional women artists, and their training, and obstacles, and in some cases the shocking misogyny that they faced: no news there, of course, but the problems of writing history on scant evidence was well brought out. The catalogue is good, too - so I mostly took photos of details ... starting with the painting that opens the exhibition, Angelica Kauffman's Invention (1778-80). And these are from her Colour - same date - an endearing little chameleon, and tranche of rainbow.
There was a whole room of very diverse botanical paintings - this is a small corner of Mary Moser's Flowers in a Vase (1759),
and this - please say it's some kind of dandelion? - from Martha Mutrie's wonderful tangle of Wild Flowers at the Corner of a Cornfield (c. 1855-60).
and some of these also had butterflies, and birds (Clara Maria Pope, Composition of Flowers, in the Vase Presented to Edmund Kean, 1818).
Then there were some mid-Victorian favorites, like the exceptionally gloomy For the Last Time, by Emily Osborn (c. 1864).
Peculiarly few cats - this kitten is in Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale's very sub-Burne Jones The Deceitfulness of Riches (1901).
There were a fair number of works from private or obscure collections - great to see these, and two in particular were new to me: Marianne Stokes' image of modernity, The Passing Train (1890),
and this truly weird painting by Florence Caxton, 'Woman's Work': A Medley (1861) - which is, I believe, currently for sale, but I promise not to buy it,
even though, among other delights, it has Barbara Bodichon perched on top of a wall.
And outside, Millais, in the rain, under some very weirdly pruned, or polled, plane trees.
If you can get to this exhibition - do so! It's on until mid-October.
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