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You are here: Home / Women / Some Remarkable Women

Some Remarkable Women

November 3rd, 2019 by Sallie Bingham in Art, Women 3 Comments

Photo of Anne-Marie McDermott

Anne-Marie McDermott, photo: https://annemariemcdermott.net/

To my mind, all women are remarkable in many ways, but as we know, only a few of us are recognized. So now I give you several who have been seen as remarkable; they stand for a multitude of others who through timing, luck or geography are never given the accolades they deserve.

First of all, pianist and conductor Anne-Marie McDermott, who is performing here in Santa Fe as part of Pro Musica’s Distinguished Women in Classical Music, a program honoring and introducing women conductors; there are many women conductors graduating from top music schools, but classical orchestras are seldom hiring them. Anne-Marie plays Mozart and Haydn with a brio that is truly astonishing; as soon as she sits down at the piano, her large, strong, articulated fingers attack the keyboard, and with modulations that transfix me, she launches into her music. To see a woman command not only the piano but the chamber music orchestra she conducts with subtle expressions and gestures—from the keyboard!—is to coin a new version of mastery, which should really be called misstressy.

Painting by Linda Stojak

Linda Stojak: Untitled (Figure 102), 2018

LewAllen Galleries here in Santa Fe is showing the large paintings of Linda Stojak in an exhibit called Looking Away. Mysterious, haunting female figures painted in oil on large canvases against stark backgrounds, turn away, or half away, white faces without features except for bloody-looking mouths. Their dresses are huge, dominating the canvas. One in particular, a mass of black, seems to convey an impact as powerful as the ghostly face. Although the gallery doesn’t refer to Stojak’s paintings in this way—most collectors of paintings as high-priced as these are inevitably men—these female figures convey a disturbing sense not only of inherent strength but of the blotting out of that strength. They have no features other than those wounded-looking mouths, and their monumental dresses express as much as their white faces.

Photo of Agnes Lawrence Pelton in the studio

Agnes Pelton in the studio, estimate 1910s, Wikipedia

And then there’s the work of Agnes Pelton, described as a Desert Transcendentalist, which may be the correct term. Her big abstracts seem to glow with a yellow fire from beneath her pigments, but because she lived and worked in Cathedral City, California, far from the coast galleries and critics, her art was forgotten after her death. She came from an earlier generation of well-trained women artists—see the photo of her, looking as modest as a sparrow—who did not pursue public recognition. Her paintings are now beginning to be recognized with a traveling show that originated in Phoenix. The handsome hard-cover catalogue for this show, which will travel, seems to ensure that her work will not lapse back into obscurity.

I give you several women who have been seen as remarkable; they stand for a multitude of others who through timing, luck or geography are never given the accolades they deserve.

Photo of Dorothy Brett in 1924

Remains of the day: Dorothy Brett, circa 1924, Museum of New Mexico Press

Still waiting to be recognized is the Taos painter, Dorothy Brett, an Englishwoman who followed D.H. Lawrence to Taos, New Mexico, in the 1920’s—the only one of the group he had tried to assemble in England. The prospect of a remote Northern New Mexico town apparently was not attractive enough to lure the others across the Atlantic, but Dorothy Brett came and spent the rest of her life deeply invested in Pueblo culture and painting many local scenes, including a group of Natives riding up their mountain to their sacred Blue Lake, not often shown to white people. It is embarrassing to note that Wikipedia states that Brett is known as much for her “social life as for her art”—which is hardly the case. I’d like to ask whoever actually writes the Wikipedia entries what social life she/he imagines in a remote village in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

The Dinner Party - Judy Chicago

The Dinner Party – Judy Chicago

One painter stands out both an outspoken feminist and an accomplished painter and sculptor: Judy Chicago. After decades of struggle, she is recognized all over the world for her large body of work. Her biggest piece, a collaboration created with a team of women ceramicists, is The Dinner Party, now housed in a wing devoted to feminist art in the Brooklyn Fine Arts Museum.

We keep on working, no matter what, and the example of those of us who have gained recognition is inspiring.

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In Art, Women Anne-Marie McDermott Linda Stojak Agnes Pelton Dorothy Brett 20 Favorites of 2019 Judy Chicago

A long and fruitful career as a writer began in 1960 with the publication of Sallie Bingham's novel, After Such Knowledge. This was followed by 15 collections of short stories in addition to novels, memoirs and plays, as well as the 2020 biography The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke.

Her latest book, Taken by the Shawnee, is a work of historical fiction published by Turtle Point Press in June of 2024. Her previous memoir, Little Brother, was published by Sarabande Books in 2022. Her short story, "What I Learned From Fat Annie" won the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize in 2023 and the story "How Daddy Lost His Ear," from her forthcoming short story collection How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (September 23, 2025), received second prize in the 2023 Sean O’Faolain Short Story Competition.

She is an active and involved feminist, working for women’s empowerment, who founded the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which gives grants to Kentucky artists and writers who are feminists, The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, and the Women’s Project and Productions in New York City. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sallie's complete biography is available here.

Comments

  1. Dawn says

    November 3rd, 2019 at 9:09 am

    Add this amazing human to the list of remarkable women …Enid Yandell 1869-1934. Our hometown trailblazer for all creative women.
    Suffragette ,first female ever inducted into the national Sculptor’s guild and a dedicated humanitarian!
    Born in Louisville Kentucky I’m sure you know her from the bronze sculpture of pan “hogans fountain “ and Daniel Boone both in Cherokee park.
    I am currently working on raising funds for a life size bronze sculpture of Enid Yandel for the city of Louisville to represent Women in their own rights.
    Any and all help in achieving this goal would be greatly appreciated for thousands of years!
    Deeply devoted Dawn

    Reply
  2. Robert Will says

    November 4th, 2019 at 8:30 am

    See also Margaret Talbot’s piece in the November 4, 2019 issue of The New Yorker for forgotten and unsung women in the movie industry.

    Reply
  3. Mary Jo says

    November 26th, 2019 at 12:33 pm

    Thank you, thank you, for the education on the overlooked women. Although I consider Judy Chicago hardly overlooked, I enjoyed seeing her mistresspiece again, and the photo of her.
    You can edit the Wikipedia version or add information to a feature, which I encourage you to do.
    Thank you, again, for the afternoon delight. Happy Thanksgiving, also.

    Reply

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