CLASS DESCRIPTION
 
This lecture will introduce some of the radical cultural and scientific shifts that took place in the US, Europe and the UK that resulted in groups of women who were interested in Spiritualism coming together to create art works. Questions to discuss: How did science impact on the early days of abstraction? How did Spiritualism, and in particular Theosophy, encourage artists to look beyond the confines of material reality in their work? How was the idea of female suffrage entwined with Spiritualism? Artists we will discuss will include Georgian Houghton, Anna Mary Howitt and Hilma af Klint.
 
Many of the techniques that 19th-century Spiritualist artists employed, such as automatism, were to become central to the Surrealists decades later. In the centenary of André Breton’s First Manifesto of Surrealist Art, we will look at the innovations that were explored decades earlier by women whose contributions, until very recently, were omitted from canonical art history.

 
ABOUT OUR LECTURER
 
Jennifer Higgie is an Australian writer and former editor and staff writer of frieze magazine who lives in London. Her recent books include The Other Side: A Story of Women, Art and the Spirit World (2023) and The Mirror and the Palette: Rebellion, Revolution and Resilience: 500 Years of women's self-portraits (2021). She was the guest curator of the 2023 exhibition Thin Skin at Monash University Art Museum in Melbourne and is the host of the National Gallery of Australia's new podcast, Artist's Artists.
 
INSTAGRAM: @jennifer_higgie
WEBSITE: https://www.jenniferhiggie.com/
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This is a recording of a live session hosted by The Feminist Lecture Program in November 2024. The reading list for the class can be found alongside this rental.

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