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Fair Women was the Victorian equivalent of a 'blockbuster' exhibition. Organised by a committee of women, it opened to great fanfare in the Grafton Galleries in London, and was comprised of both historical and contemporary portraits of women as well as decorative objects.
Meaghan Clarke argues that the exhibition challenged contemporary assumptions about the representation of women and the superficiality of female collectors. The
Fair Women phenomenon complicated gender stereotypes and foregrounded women as cultural arbiters. This book uncovers a wide range of texts and images to reveal that
Fair Women brought together fashion, modernity and gender politics in new and surprising ways. It shows that, while invariably absent in institutional histories, women were vital to the development of the modern blockbuster exhibition.
This book will be of interest to scholars in art and gender studies, museum studies, feminist art history, women artists and art history.
List of contents
Part I The Exhibition; 1. Exhibiting
Fair Women; 2. 'Feminine weapons': Women, Collecting and Connoisseurship;
Part II Modern Fair Women; 3. Performing the Modern Woman: Actresses, Celebrity Culture and Exhibitions;
4. (Re)envisioning New Women: Eveleen Myers and Gertrude Campbell;
Part III Fair Women Redux; 5. Re-inventing
Fair Women: Women, Exhibitions and Art Writing;
6. International
Fair Women; Epilogue
About the author
Meaghan Clarke is Senior Lecturer in Art History at the University of Sussex, UK.
