Portrait of the artist Tirzah Garwood (1929).
Phyllis Dodd
(British, 1899-1995). Oil.

Garwood’s autobiography shines light on the situation of a young female artist during the middle decades of the 20th century, contending with issues of self-confidence as an artist, the emerging awareness of the tyranny of society’s expectations of women but also the sense that hers was a generation and a milieu from which radical transformations in behaviour could be expected.

Dolce far niente (1879).
Sir William Quiller Orchardson (Scottish, 1832-1910).
Oil on canvas.

Orchardson’s method was that of one who worked under a creative, decorative and subjective impulse, rather than under one derived from a wish to observe and record.

His affiliation is with Watteau and Gainsborough, rather than with those who would base all pictorial art on a keen eye for actuality and “value.”

Dancer (c.1874).
Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917).
Oil on canvas.
The State Hermitage Museum.

The study shows the dancer in a white tutu, with her elbows out and forward.

With essentially the same movement, Degas could express such different feelings, whether the ballerina’s fatigue, or the fastidious adjustment of her costume or hairdo, or the urgent motion of the dance itself.

The rich potential of such transformations was significant, tempting Degas to keep returning to them.



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