“This painting is so successful that you would never imagine it was done by a woman.
»The sentence lashes, hung on the walls of Beaubourg, in Paris.
The man, an American painter, who uttered it in the 1950s, thought he was paying a compliment.
These words would pass today for "a sexist insult", points out Christine Macel, curator of the magnificent exhibition "They make abstraction" at the Center Pompidou.
In those years, Life magazine published a photo that has become historic of the new heroes of American art, abstract expressionism, from Rothko to Pollock, fourteen men in suits and ties and only one woman, Hedda Sterne, who would later say: “They were all exasperated that I was in the photo because they were all macho enough to fear that the presence of a woman would not make the photo taken seriously.
The Beaubourg exhibition brought out of oblivion these women, in America and elsewhere, who also invented abstraction.
Including Lee Krasner, a great painter whom the art world has long considered only as the wife of Jackson Pollock, sent back to his kitchen, not to his brushes.
From cabaret queens to figures of abstraction, the same struggle
Another continent, same machismo: at the Institute of the Arab World, in the superb rooms of the “Divas, from Oum Kalthoum to Dalida” exhibition, where the voices of these immense singers resonate, one is struck by the stifled destiny of Warda (1939-2012), who sold tens of millions of albums and performed over 300 songs.
Star of the Arab world, the diva Warda experienced a stifled destiny, forced into silence for ten years by her husband, before returning to the stage in 1972. Radio France discotheque
Queen of cabarets in Paris, Beirut, Cairo, in 1963 in Algeria she married a hero of Independence, Djamel Kesri, who “categorically” forbids her to sing.
Be beautiful and shut up… Caprice, he's the one who does it.
The diva is silent for ten years.
The return to the stage of this star from the Arab world in 1972, at the initiative of President Boumediene, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Algerian independence, led her to divorce.
Other times, same struggles in the exhibition “Female Painters, 1780-1830, Birth of a Fight”, at the Luxembourg Museum.
Rosalie Filleul de Besnes (1752-1794), who signed a remarkable self-portrait, had to give up painting after her marriage.
Drawing flowers for decoration is still happening, but painting yourself, you do not think about it.
The Musée du Luxembourg pays tribute to the women who, between 1780 and 1830, had to fight to gain access to training and to find a place among the artists of the time.
Rmn-Grand Palais / Photo Didier
Like Marie-Adélaïde Durieux, who paints herself naturally, pencil in hand and drawing board under her arm, better to do than get ready.
The cartel that presents it is poignant laconism: "Active between 1793 and 1798".
That's all we know about her, not even the date of her birth or death.
“The Revolution is not favorable to the emancipation of women through painting.
Marie-Adélaïde Durieux seeks in art a form of personal fulfillment and social recognition that the legislator denied them, ”writes Jean Hubac on the“ Histoire par l'image ”site.
Machism and misogyny
From the 18th to the 20th century, from the East to the West, the same obstacles. “Women did not have access to art schools for a long time. This exhibition on abstraction is an open door, ”notes Christine Macel. Wide open even, since the Center Pompidou presents in 42 cocoon rooms of its museum a very large number of masterful paintings signed by a few big names, such as Joan Mitchell, but above all by dozens of unknowns. Like a masterpiece by Korean Wook-Kyung Choi, who died in 1985, who signed one of her other paintings "The Hidden Woman", quite a symbol. “She is not invisible like many others. She is known in Korea, but had to fight against a very misogynistic society, ”says the curator of Beaubourg.
If the Center Pompidou exhibition presents masterful paintings signed by some great names in abstraction, such as Joan Mitchell (photo), it also honors many unknowns. The LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images / Loomis Dean
These three exhibitions show how much these ladies could not count on the men.
Help yourself… In Egypt, the divas took over from their elders in the 1920s and 1930s: a feminist union was created, the cultural turmoil against British colonialism pushed women to launch out as directors and producers in the cinema, with lots of sung parts.
"Divas are brilliant performers, and avant-garde women who have overcome the shackles and obstacles of patriarchal societies", explain Hanna Boghanim and Élodie Bouffard, curators of the Institut du monde exhibition. Arab.
Behind the divas, so many fights.
“Female Painters 1780-1830”,
at the Musée du Luxembourg, until July 4.
"They make abstraction",
at the Center Pompidou, until August 23.
“Divas”,
at the Arab World Institute, until September 26.