8
Despite their similar backgrounds, Irish women artists of this period couldn’t be easily boxed
into categories with narrow definitions. Individuality ran deep and true as you would expect
throughout any amorphous group of artists over a 100 year time period, but especially with
female artists who had to fight harder to be seen and heard. In spite of these difficulties, as well
as being artists, the women profiled here were writers, teachers, political activists, designers and
publishers. Each made their own individual strides whether on a local or national scale, but
collective recognition for their achievements was hard won from the mostly male, conservative
establishment.
Male artists tended to conform more to the expectations of this dominant establishment
which had a Nationalist, conservative agenda. Instead of looking abroad and to the future
for the development of art in Ireland, they looked inwards and to the past, to reviving,
maintaining and strengthening an Irish identity which manifested itself in a more academic
artistic style. The majority male group was well served by their political connections and access
to the media so naturally they held considerable public sway
2
. The most prominent Irish
artistic commentators and critics were all men, and weren’t afraid of using condescending,
chauvinistic language to belittle female artists.
Whereas Irish male artists such as Seán Keating and Aloysius O’Kelly were looking to the west
of Ireland for inspiration for a new nationalism based on the traditions of the ‘noble peasant’
of Aran or Achill, female artists looked abroad to Europe, and in fact France played a vital role
in the creation of an Irish national art scene.
The galleries and salons of Paris held considerable attraction for female art students and nearly
all Irish women artists of the late 19th century and early 20th century were students there
at some stage. Teachers in the city were considered cosmopolitan, open to new ideas and
above all willing to teach female students on a similar, if not the same, basis as their male
counterparts. The best students, both male and female, were attracted to Paris, which also
boasted a willing selection of models and access to eminent French painters.
One of this exhibition’s earliest featured artists, Helen Mabel Trevor (1831-1900) was born
in County Down and began to study art seriously only in her forties, staying in Paris around
1880. She excelled at painting children and her works such as
Race to the Bottom of the Bowl
and
Children Playing
in a Barn capture the innocence and preoccupations of their private
world. Both compositions show the children like parentheses, framed around a central point
of interest; in one the viewer is allowed the privilege of seeing what it is, while in the other
we can only guess. She left Paris for Normandy and Brittany, which were also visited by other
Irish women artists, including Mary Kate Benson and her sister Charlotte, and May Guinness,
in the surrounding years.
2
Finucane, P. and Connolly, M. Journeys through Line and Colour, p.iv, University of Limerick (2010)
Cont. p12
