Dorothy Dehner

By Jessica Lack
July 4, 2024

Christian Levett on creating Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins (FAMM): ‘I needed the collection to tell a story, and that story is the birth of modern art’

The British collector explains how and why he decided to move on from antiquities to establish a museum for 19th- to 21st-century female artists — and why it made the mayor of Mougins cry.

There may come a time when a museum devoted entirely to female artists will be redundant — as strange as a museum for right-handed artists. However, in a world where modern art by women still makes up only about 11 per cent of major museum acquisitions, and where their paintings still cost a fraction of what their male contemporaries can command, the newly opened Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins (FAMM) is a vital addition to the canon.

Situated in the picturesque hilltop village of Mougins in the south of France, once home to Picasso and Francis Picabia, the privately owned FAMM is housed in a former museum of classical antiquity. More than 100 paintings and sculptures by more than 80 artists, spanning the period from 1870 to the present day, are closely spaced on four floors, creating an intimate atmosphere in which to see works by the likes of Berthe Morisot, Leonora Carrington, Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner, Shirin Neshat and Carrie Mae Weems. 

Dorothy Dehner 

June 21, 2024 by Kay Whitney
New York
Berry Campbell Gallery 

My introduction to Dorothy Dehner’s sculpture came via a tiny photograph in a catalogue of David Smith’s work. Indeed, it has been Dehner’s fate until recently to exist as a footnote to Smith’s career. In a Smithsonian oral history from the 1960s, she described their 23-year marriage as both violent and loving; she also stated that it was impossible for two sculptors to exist in the same household. Her career didn’t begin until she was 56, after her divorce from Smith. And it is only now that her work—under-appreciated and rarely displayed despite its presence in major museum collections—is receiving the treatment it deserves in a sprawling and inclusive retrospective (on view through June 22, 2024) that reveals the scope of her talents.

Eric Dever, Moorland, 2020, oil on canvas, 30 x36 in, The Heckscher Museum of Art

The Heckscher Museum of Art
THE RAINS ARE CHANGING FAST: NEW ACQUISITIONS IN CONTEXT

March 23, 2024 - September 1, 2024

The Rains are Changing Fast highlights artwork recently acquired by The Heckscher Museum of Art alongside a selection of key works long held in the Museum’s collection. For over a century, the Heckscher has been collecting and presenting art that explores the landscapes and social issues of its place and time. This exhibition, which takes its title from a 2021 video by Christine Sciulli, features new and beloved works of art that together reveal the diverse ways in which artists contend with environmental and cultural change. Created over a span of 175 years by 39 artists, the works are united by shared engagements with landscape, allegory, and abstraction. Some, like Richard Mayhew’s Pescadero (2014) or George Inness’s The Pasture, Durham, Connecticut (c. 1879), present luminous, if precarious, visions of the American landscape. Others, including Deborah Buck’s They Had Stars in Their Eyes (2020) and Dorothy Dehner’s Landscape (1976), employ modes of abstraction that speak to issues of gender and materiality. The resulting visual conversations emphasize the Museum’s ongoing commitment to social concerns, environmental issues, and Long Island’s diverse communities.

Turner Contemporary
Beyond Form: Lines of Abstraction, 1950 - 1970

Saturday 3 February – Monday 6 May 2024
Guest curated by Dr Flavia Frigeri.

This spring, Turner Contemporary will present Beyond Form: Lines of Abstraction, 1950 – 1970, a group exhibition presenting abstraction as a radical global language shared by women artists in the twenty years following World War II. Guest curated by Dr Flavia Frigeri, the exhibition will bring together the works of more than 50 artists to examine how, through abstract forms, materials and modes, women pushed the boundaries of artmaking while tackling seismic cultural, social and political shifts. Comprising over 80 artworks, predominantly sculpture, the exhibition will trace how the language of abstraction developed on a global scale.

Beyond Form will re-evaluate how art, gender and the act of making intersected in the post-WWII period, when men often eclipsed women’s artistic contributions. It will highlight the pioneering efforts of women artists in the development of abstraction, asserting their vital role in the discourse of the times.

In the 1950s and 1960s, women actively resisted the pressure to return to domestic roles, instead capitalising on their substantial wartime work experiences. By embracing abstraction, these artists leveraged a form of expression that resonated with the era’s proto-feminist sentiments. Through employing techniques like hanging, stacking and weaving they subverted established art-craft hierarchies and challenged entrenched gender norms. Their innovative use of sculptural materials allowed them to investigate critical social topics and explore themes concerning the human form, political discourse and more. 

Looking beyond the Western canon, Beyond Form will present abstraction as a constellation of interconnected stories. It will celebrate artists from Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, positioning them as central figures in the history of abstraction and will bring to light many works that have previously gone unseen.

New York gallery Berry Campbell had a standout booth, a curated presentation of 12 postwar women artists. The gallery has a distinct focus on re-examining underrepresented women artists of the 20th-century. Gallery owner Christine Berry called it “an incredible day,” noting high demand for artists including Alice Baber, Bernice Bing, and Lynne Drexler.

Works by Drexler sold for $885,000 and $200,000; the artist, who has been drawing intense interest, will likely be the subject of a traveling institutional retrospective at some point in the near future. A work by Baber went for $200,000—Berry Campbell hopes to mount a solo show of the artist next year.

Later on in the day, the gallery let Artnet News know that a painting by Ethel Schwabacher had been sold for $195,000.