Though the sketches and paintings on exhibit at the Kennedy Museum of Art might seem unconnected, their artists all have a common thread — their gender.
Female artists exclusively created each of the 14 pieces in the exhibit titled “Women Artists in the Kennedy Museum of Art Collections – Part 1.”
“One of the things that we wanted to look at was how to group the collection of the Kennedy in a way that you could say something interesting and new about the work,” said Jennie Klein, associate professor in the School of Art.
Taken from the Kennedy private collections, the exhibit is divided into three parts and highlights female artists in the 20th century. The first part is primarily from artists who began their careers before the feminist art movement began in 1970.
“It’s only been in recent history that we started paying attention to women artists,” said Phelicia Sommer, a first-year graduate student studying art history and a curatorial intern for the exhibit.
The art show primarily features two-dimensional media such as paintings, drawings and prints. It includes famous artists as well as local artists who worked with Ohio University or in the area.
“As it happens, we have quite a large collection of work by women artists, and we also had quite a few well-known feminist artists come through Ohio University,” Klein said.
Isabelle Work, a Lancaster resident, is one of the local artists whose abstract painting “Geometry” is on display at the exhibit. She worked at OU for more than 40 years and was also one of the most interesting artists, Sommer said.
“In all points of history, there are people producing art that weren’t necessarily the most famous,” Sommer said. “I think that’s really interesting to compare to what the more famous are producing in that period.”
The second part will explore female artists from the post-wave feminism movement, and the third will highlight contemporary female artists, focusing even more specifically on local artists.
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