Catherine McCormack and Rebecca Birrell Interviewed by David Isaac

Two art historians Catherine McCormack and Rebecca Birrell discuss the place of women in art. Has their identity been stifled by their portrayal in art as archetypes, and how far has the work of women artists been unjustly overlooked?

In her book Women in the Picture, McCormack argues that women’s identity has been stifled by a limited set of archetypes found in art from the classics to modern advertising. And she says women artists have been overlooked and held back from more empowering roles. McCormack is an art historian and founder and course leader of Sotheby’s Institute of Art’s ‘Women and Art’ programme.

Birrell’s This Dark Country looks at artists of the early 20th century living around the Bloomsbury group including Ethel Sands, Nina Hamnett, Vanessa Bell and Gwen John. She says that for every artist remembered there is another forgotten whose art was replaced by being a mother or wife. Birrell has worked as a curator and is currently assistant keeper of paintings, prints and drawings at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.