We Weren't Modern Enough: Women Artists and the Limits of German Modernism

by Meskimmon, Marsha

• ISBN13: 9780520221345
• ISBN10: 0520221346
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-09-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

Meskimmon asks why women artists were left out of the canon of German modernism, tracing the reasons to the construction of a unified (male) history of art that in effect denied women a voice. The book is an effort to reconceive the period's art history and the perspective of the Weimar woman artist.

Author Biography

Marsha Meskimmon lectures in the School of Art and Design at Loughborough University

Table of Contents

Introduction: Women Artists in the Weimar Republic
The Modern, the Canon and Frauenkultur	1	(5)
Subjects and Histories: Situated Mapping	6	(6)
The Chapters Mapped	12	(11)
The Prostitute	23	(52)
The Working Woman	23	(7)
Madonnas and Magdalens	30	(8)
The Individual and the Mass	38	(12)
Celebrities and the Press	50	(7)
Women in Public: Consumer and Mannequin	57	(18)
The Mother	75	(46)
`Woman' of 1934	75	(7)
`Woman-Mother': Then and Now	82	(14)
Economic Differences between Women: The Working Mother	96
The Domestication of Politics	94	(5)
Differences between Women: Race and Eugenics	99	(7)
Abortion: The Right to Choose	106	(6)
Women Artists and Maternal Subjectivity	112	(9)
The Hausfrau	121	(42)
Husband, House and Home	121	(6)
Mann und Frau: Marriage, Sexuality and Comradeship	127	(14)
The Household: Rationalisation and Domestic Service	141	(7)
Children: Natural Bonds, Social Rules	148	(15)
The Neue Frau	163	(36)
Icons, Myths and Realities	163	(7)
Labour: Women as White-Collar Workers	170	(8)
The Neue Frau and Consumerism	178	(7)
From Stenographer to Revue-Girl	185	(14)
The Garconne	199	(32)
The Third Sex	199	(9)
Sapphic Love	208	(8)
Masquerade, Performance and Multiplicity	216	(15)
CONCLUSIONS: WOMAN AS ARTIST IN THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC	231	(18)
The Woman as Artist: Re-Figuring Tropes	231	(4)
The Bio-Cultural Body of the Woman as Artist	235	(2)
Seeing Women as Artists	237	(3)
Histories and Embodied Female Subjects	240	(9)
Select Bibliography	249	(11)
Index	260