Angelica Kauffman by Miranda Miller

 

Angelica Paintress of Minds, my novel about the eighteenth -century artist Angelica Kauffman, was published by The Barbican Press in 2020. Publication was carefully timed to coincide with an exhibition of her work at the Royal Academy. Then Covid happened and the exhibition, together with so much else, was cancelled. So you can imagine how delighted I was when this excellent show opened at the Royal Academy in March. I particularly admire her portraits and self -portraits. 

 
This portrait she did of the great actor David Garrick displays her talent for empathy and warmth. While she was painting it in Naples in 1764, she said he kept trying to make her laugh, his wit and enjoyment of each other’s company led to a flirtation. Garrick sent this verse to St James’s Chronicle:

While thus you paint with Ease and Grace,

And spirit all your own;

Take, if you please, my Mind and Face,

But let my heart alone.


This has been a wonderful year for Angelica Kauffman and for women artists in general. She is one of the stars of a fascinating exhibition at Tate Britain: NOW YOU SEE US: WOMEN ARTISTS IN BRITAIN 1520–1920 (on until October 13th). At last, it seems, women artists are being taken seriously. The exhibition tells the story of their long battle to be allowed to pursue an artistic education. Artemisia Gentileschi and Angelica Kauffman were only able to become painters because they grew up in their fathers’ studios. 

 

This painting of Venus and Cupid inducing Helen to fall in love with Paris shows her gift for presenting mythology from the point of view of women. Kauffman and the botanical artist Mary Moser were amongst the founder members of the Royal Academy of Arts. Even so they were excluded from life drawing classes because it was “indelicate” for a woman to stare at a naked man, and no other women were admitted until Laura Knight was elected to the RA in 1936.

Almost all the paintings in this exhibition are of women as well as by them; it seems that women often preferred to sit for other women. There are some interesting discoveries, for example Frances Reynolds, the sister of Joshua, painted an excellent portrait of Elizabeth Montagu, the leader of the Bluestockings. By the mid-nineteenth century the fight to be valued as artists merged with the wider campaign for women’s rights which is, I think, why this exhibition is so important.

Julia Margaret Cameron was given a camera in 1863, and her photographs are now considered to be some of the finest ever taken. The Slade was founded in 1871 based on a financial bequest from Felix Slade, who became its namesake. It was, and still is, part of University College London (UCL), which had been founded in 1826 as London's first university and the first university in Britain to be entirely secular. The Slade admitted women students on equal terms with men from its founding. The barrier to life drawing was finally broken down. and they quickly outnumbered male students. I was surprised to see that In the First World War there were women war photographers, such as Anna Airy. 

 

Miranda Miller’s ninth novel, When I Was, will be published next March by Barbican Press. www.mirandamiller.info.