ESNA 2023 Conference
Beyond ‘The Obstacle Race’:
Women’s role in the history of 19th-century art revisited
Information
Date: 1-2 June
Time: 09:30 to 18:00
Location: RKD or online
RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History
Prins Willem-Alexanderhof 5 (KB-complex)
2595 BE Den Haag/The Hague
The NetherlandsLanguage: English
On the 1st and 2nd of June 2023, the 10th ESNA Conference Beyond ‘The Obstacle Race’: Women’s role in the history of 19th-century art revisited will take place, organized by the European Society for Nineteenth-Century Art (ESNA) in collaboration with the RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History. Tickets are now available in the RKD web shop.
Rephrasing John Donne’s famous poem, ‘No man or woman is an island entire of itself’, the 2023 ESNA conference investigates women’s interrelations within the art world and their impact on art objects and collections.
In recent years, the interest in women’s various roles within the art world has broadened, resulting in numerous exhibitions and acquisitions. This output has mainly responded to the underrepresentation of women in art history by either isolating them or adding them to pre-existing structures, publications, and institutions, and – most often – by referring to the obstacles they had to overcome.
Although we realize that for a woman in the nineteenth-century art word, there were indeed many obstacles to overcome, the 2023 ESNA conference will instead focus on the choices and possibilities women did have. In our ongoing quest for an inclusive society, it has become all the more clear that people live in relation to each other and create a world together. Our identities are defined by a manifold of intersecting and evolving features and practices. This conference tackles the diverse ways in which women took up different roles in relation to others in order to understand not only historic and present realities, but also the dynamics of art (history).
The 2023 ESNA conference thus takes a holistic and systemic approach to women’s roles in art during the nineteenth century. The papers explicitly present women makers, models, critics, dealers, museum professionals, collectors, and other mediators in relation to their historical context and within the broader art world. How did women work together with others, which networks and strategies did they use, run into, or create? Within these two days, we hope to set one more step towards a changed art history, where these female actors take their place as self-evident, interconnected, and permanent fixtures.
Thursday June 1
9.30-10.00 Registration, Coffee & Tea
10.00-10.05 Prof Dr Chris Stolwijk, director RKD: Welcome
10.05-10.15 Mayken Jonkman, ESNA and Rijksmuseum: Introduction to the conference theme
10.15-10.45 Keynote lecture. Dr Mary Morton, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Strategies of Success. American Artists in Paris 1860-1880 (working title)
10.45-11.00 Questions & Discussion 2
11.00-12.05 Session 1 Creation & Collaboration 11.00-11.05 Chair: Annemiek Rens, ESNA and Drents Museum, Assen
11.05-11.25 Bram Donders, Museum Boijmans, Rotterdam: ‘Mariane Meijer (1804-1886): looking beyond traditional art historical methods: studio practice, social network and institutional history’.
11.25-11.45 Dr Maria G. Moschou, independent scholar, Athens: Artistic education and female agency in Risorgimento Italy: The case of Eleni BoukouriAltamura (c. 1821-1900).
11.45-12.05 Prof Dr Tom Verschaffel, University of Leuven: The limitations of a master’s influence: women painters in the network of Alfred Stevens.
12.05-12.20 Session 1: Questions & Discussion
12.20-13.30 Lunch
13.30-14.50 Session 2 Strategies & Choices 13.30-13.35 Chair: Dr Maite van Dijk, ESNA and director Museum More, Gorssel
13.35-13.55 Malika M’rani Alaoui, Ghent University: Exhibiting women: strategies for success at the Belgian triennial salons.
13.55-14.15 Dr Hanna Klarenbeek, Museum Palace het Loo, Apeldoorn: Women can’t haggle: Strategies of Dutch female artists on the art market in the 19th century.
14.15-14.35 Dr Julie M. Johnson, University of Texas, San Antonio: Beyond the Obstacle Race in Imperial Vienna: The Forgotten History of Women as Public Artists, early 20th c.
14.35-14.50 Session 2: Questions & Discussion
14.50-15.20 Coffee & Tea
15.20- 17.00 Session 3 Writing & Guiding 15.20-15.25 Chair: Dr Stefan Huygebaert, ESNA and Mu.ZEE, Oostende
15.25-15.45 Dr Maria Alambritis, National Gallery, London: Daughters of Corinne: putting art history on the map in women’s nineteenth-century guidebooks to Italy.
15.45-16.05 Dr Eveline Deneer, University of Utrecht: ‘Les indiquer nominativement à l’admiration publique’: The work of women painters in French ladies’ almanacs, 1810-1840. 16.05-16.25 Dr Laure Boyer, University of Lyon-Grenoble: Victoria Dubourg – Fantin-Latour (1840-1926): painter, archivist and historian of art in the second half of the Nineteenth Century.
16.25-17.00 Session 3 and day one: Questions & Discussion
17.00-18.00 Drinks followed by the speakers’ dinner
Friday June 2
9.30-9.40 Dr Marjan Sterckx, ESNA and Ghent University: Welcome
9.40-10.10 Keynote lecture Dr Jenny Reynaerts, ESNA & Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: Not just a new figure in the studio: identifying the artist’s model.
10.10-10.25 Questions & Discussion
10.25-10.45 Coffee & Tea
10.45-12.05 Session 4 Manifestation & Reception
10.45-10.50 Chair: Dr Rachel Esner, ESNA and University of Amsterdam
10.50-11.10 Eva-Charlotta Mebius, Uppsala University and University of London: Nineteenth-Century European Artistic Networks and the Reception of Anna Boberg Reconsidered.
11.10-11.30 Lisa Pregitzer, University of Giessen: Women-Only exhibitions and networks in late 19th -century France.
11.30-11.50 Alexandra Waszak, Université libre de Bruxelles: Geneviève Granger and Ernesta Robert-Mérignac: from the Unes to the Quelques, two women societies at the end of the 19th century.
11.50-12.05 Session 4: Questions & Discussion
12.05-13.30 Lunch
13.30-15.10 Session 5 Support & Sabotage 13.30-13.35 Chair: Fleur Roos Rosa de Carvalho, ESNA and Van Gogh Museum
13.35-13.55 Dr Hanna-Leena Paloposki, Finnish Literature Society, Aalto University and the University of Helsinki: Tracing Women Artists’ Networks in the 19th-century Finland.
13.55-14.15 Dr Apolline Malevez, Université Libre de Bruxelles: 'Support Systems: the Hidden Labour behind Art Making'.
14.15-14.35 Marlies Stoter and Anne-Marie Segeren, Frisian Museum, Leeuwarden: Kate Bisschop-Swift (1834-1928), artist and curator.
14.35-14.55 Vaissie Anaelle, Paris Nanterre University: Male Support and Female Success as China Decorators: The Example of France during the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century.
14.55-15.10 Session 5: Questions & Discussion
15.10-15.30 Coffee & Tea
15.30- 17.00 Session 6 Matronage & Patronage 15.30-15.35 Chair: Dr Jenny Reynaerts, ESNA and Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
15.35-15.55 Dr Nic Peeters, independent scholar, Antwerpen: Lady Lindsay and the Women Artists of the Grosvenor Gallery (1877-1890): An Exhibition Strategy Towards Gender Equality in Victorian London.
15.55-16.15 Mariëlle Ekkelenkamp, University of Amsterdam: Female art patronage in the Dutch Rembrandt Society. 1870-1940.
16.15-16.35 Dr Lynne Ambrosini, Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati: Friends, Collaborators, Art Collectors: Anna S. Taft and Mary M. Emery of Cincinnati.
16.35-16.50 Session 6: Questions & Discussion 16.50-17.00 Dr. Rachel Esner, ESNA and University of Amsterdam: Conclusions from the ESNA 2023 Conference
17.00 End of conference