THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman:
Hello, passion maker. This is Miriam Schulman, your curator of inspiration and you’re listening to episode number 159 of the Inspiration Place Podcast. Shout outs to my newest listeners in Saudi Arabia and Iceland. I am so grateful that you’re here. Today we’re talking all about art history and feminism. In this episode, you’ll discover the forgotten female artist who created drip paintings long before Jackson Pollock and yes, he did see hers before he created his. We’re also going to talk about a few of our favorite female painters. So make sure you stay to hear all of them. Today’s guest is an art historian, media personality and author. Currently, she serves as curator of modern and contemporary art at the North Carolina Museum of Art with responsibilities ranging from exhibition planning and execution to public lectures and tours to critical writing.
Her professional expertise includes modern and contemporary art with a particular interest in women artists, Asian art, and early modern art and Renaissance art. In 2016, her experience led her to create and host a popular Art Curious Podcast and publish her first book with Penguin by the same name. Please welcome to The Inspiration Place, Jennifer Dasal. Hello, Jennifer. Welcome to the show.
Jennifer Dasal:
Thank you so much for having me, Miriam. This is really exciting. I’m so happy to be here.
Miriam Schulman:
I am so excited to geek out about art history. That was my major in college, by the way.
Jennifer Dasal:
I love it. There aren’t so many of us out there, so I’m always so excited when I run into another art historian. So yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. I mean, I wouldn’t consider myself an art historian just because I majored in it, but-
Jennifer Dasal:
You are, you can accept it.
Miriam Schulman:
You can redeem yourself. All right, fine. Today I will. That’s why I call myself curator of inspiration. [inaudible 00:02:41] My main assistant who basically runs everything, she was an art history major as well and all the time I’m telling her, “You got to tell your parents how much these skills paid off.” All the things that we do whenever I’m having her do research, like, “Could you help me research?” We were highlighting the black figure painter at one point and women portrait artists and she helps me pull together that research. So I’m always saying, “See, aren’t you glad you majored in art history?”
Jennifer Dasal:
It’s so true because I think we have been so long a punchline and even President Obama threw art history under the bus a couple of years ago as an example of, I guess, frivolous majors in some way. And he has to [crosstalk 00:03:26] yes. And he had to backpedal because all of us were just up in arms. And one of the curators at MoMA actually wrote him an open letter. So he had to apologize and really say that there’s a lot of skill and a lot of resources that you have to have to be somebody who studies art history. We’ve had to have a lot of that research capabilities, writing capabilities, public speaking. I mean, there’s a lot that goes into it. So you, your assistant, we’re doing it. Doing great.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. Well, I’m so excited to have you. Your book was amazing. So Jennifer has a book, Art Curious. She also has a podcast by the same name. Don’t worry. We’ll make sure it’s in the show notes for all my book club people who can’t… I don’t actually have a book club by the way, but all the people who read all the books by my guests, because I know there’s a lot of you out there who can’t wait to read. All right. So the first thing we’re going to talk about was actually not in the book. So this is the game my husband and I play in the morning. So we subscribe to The New York Times, the actual physical paper and he’ll be like, “Hey, do you know about this artist?” So usually this happens in the obituary section. So this one, totally up your alley, Jennifer.
So this is Janet Sobel, who she just passed away. Actually, no. She didn’t just pass away. I don’t know why this came up because it says she died in 1968. So why this was in here, I don’t know. It must’ve been a slow day in the art section [crosstalk 00:04:53] for art. So here’s the story. She did drip paintings in 1944 before Jackson Pollock. So the question is, did he see it? The answer is yes. Clement Greenberg and Jackson Pollock viewed her work in her studio and this is where the history part is important. The date was before his first drip painting that they did see it.
Jennifer Dasal:
Oh my gosh. And this is amazing to me. I want to know everything basically, because I don’t know her. I’ve never heard of this artist before and that’s embarrassing and also-
Miriam Schulman:
But it’s not your fault. The problem is not that you don’t know. The problem is how come the world doesn’t know this? That’s the problem.
Jennifer Dasal:
It’s true. And that’s something that is sadly all too common because we always are finding out something about somebody who did something amazing years and years before the big guy did it. And it usually is a guy and it’s usually a white guy who is dead or has been dead for a long time who gets the credit. So I shouldn’t be too shocked that I don’t know about her, but oh, I want to know everything now.
Miriam Schulman:
Why did they talk about how come she wasn’t as famous as Jackson Pollock? So some of it they did say that it’s just not as sexy. They have photographs of her lying on her stomach, doing her drip paintings. Not the same as Jackson Pollock with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He was the poster child of the bad boy of abstract expressionists and she made it look very dainty like that she could just do it lying on her stomach and make the same thing.
Jennifer Dasal:
[inaudible 00:06:40] love that. I think there’s something that sounds like it’s languid about being able to lie on your stomach. There’s a sensuality there, but I totally get it. I’m with you and that is not the same as just flinging paint on a canvas. But oh, I really want to see these works. And I want to see how they’re different. Basically, I want to be a fly on the wall with that studio visit that Pollock did with Clement Greenberg, because I want to know what they were thinking. I want to know what was discussed in the room. And then I want to basically see how Pollock took it and changed it or not. I really want to know if he was copying her or if he just went a step further.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. So what it says here is Peggy Guggenheim included… Artist’s name that we’re talking about is Janet Sobel, included Sobel’s work in a 1945 group show called The Woman in her Manhattan Gallery Art of The Century. And in 1946, the Guggenheim gave her a solo show at her gallery. In a letter, Guggenheim referred to Sobel as the best woman painter.
Jennifer Dasal:
Which is such a double-edged thing, right?
Miriam Schulman:
It’s like why does it have to say woman painter?
Jennifer Dasal:
You want it just to be best painter. [inaudible 00:07:50] Or my favorite painter would of have been great too. It would have been amazing, especially with Peggy Guggenheim being the one to say that. You want Peggy Guggenheim just to say, best painter, because she’s a lady also. She’s a woman too. Oh my gosh.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. And so for the evidence, since I know you’re not a historian and you like evidence, so Greenberg wrote in his essay, American Type Painting, 1955, adding, “Pollock admitted these pictures made an impression on him. And if you want to see this work, Sobel’s most distinguished painting, Milky Way from 1945 is part of the Museum of Modern Art collection. Then you can also see Pollock’s drip painting there too, of course.” Let’s talk about some other women artists who we should know about that maybe my listeners don’t. Share with me one of your favorites.
Jennifer Dasal:
So one of my favorites, I love so many artists. I basically don’t have a number one favorite.
Miriam Schulman:
No, because it’s like, what’s your favorite ice cream flavor. It’s going to change.
Jennifer Dasal:
It changes all the time. Even my favorite period in art history changes all the time. I love so many of them, but one of my favorites and somebody that I actually ended up writing my master’s thesis on when I was in grad school is a French painter named Rosa Bonheur. So she is a woman. She never married and in fact it looked like she was probably a lesbian and she was in two very long-term committed relationships. She was extremely independent. She had her own Chateau that was right outside of Paris, not too far from it. And she really developed her career from the ground up and became one of the most popular artists of her time. People knew her by name and actually closer to the period of her death, so closer to the end of the 19th century, little girls would receive Rosa Bonheur dolls.
So these were little collectible dolls they could play with because she was so famous. Eventually she fell out of fashion because what she painted was animals. And I always say, bear with me because on the surface, that sounds really boring, but she was an emphatic animal lover and you can see her excitement and interest in animals and their personality and their souls in a really interesting way so clearly in her works of art. There is a fantastic one that’s at the Met. I personally think it’s her best work, which is a huge, huge painting called the Horse Fair. It’s from 1853. It’s giant, but it’s near the impressionist galleries, if anybody is familiar with the layout of the Met, but I guarantee you that most people probably don’t realize who it is or they walk right past it without looking into it.
But again, this hugely famous artist, this painting ended up coming to New York because one of the Vanderbilt’s bought it. So she was considered big time. But again, she faded away in history as we tend to do a lot of times. I think our women artists tend to fall by the wayside. And then it wasn’t really until the late sixties, early seventies with the feminist revival in art history that people started learning more about her. So definitely look her up for anybody who’s not interested. Her background and her biography alone are completely worth it.
Miriam Schulman:
You said she was painting like in the 1850s?
Jennifer Dasal:
Yes.
Miriam Schulman:
So her contemporaries would be Kobe or-
Jennifer Dasal:
Absolutely.
Miriam Schulman:
I’m trying to think about what paintings were popular during the times. It was animals were in scenes and a landscape with people, but not necessarily by themselves.
Jennifer Dasal:
That’s true. Yes. So she really, I think reached her height around the realism period. So you’re talking about Kobe, Manet, people like that. So definitely prior to the impressionists [inaudible 00:11:30] hitting the scene, but yeah, she really made them the star. And even when there were people in some of her scenes, which there were on occasion, they really take second stage really. It’s the animals are the stars and people loved them. She was hugely famous not only in France where she was from, but also in England. And she counts Queen Victoria as one of her major devotees I suppose you could say, because we know the English love their horses and their dogs. And so no one could paint them quite as well as Rosa Bonheur. So she was very popular over there as well.
Miriam Schulman:
All right, perfect. So we will try to include the horse. It’s called the Horse Fair, did you say?
Jennifer Dasal:
The Horse Fair.
Miriam Schulman:
The Horse Fair as well as Janet Sobel’s Milky Way painting. We’ll try to hunt that down as well and put both of those in the show notes for people who want to check out those paintings. That’s going to be Schulmanart.com/159.
By the way, I wanted to make sure you knew as of this recording, we are taking applications for The Mastermind. If you’re looking to master the art of sales and marketing, because you’re lacking a solid strategy and a confident mindset, let’s fix that. To see if you qualify, go to schulmanart.com/biz to apply. Now that’s biz as in B-I-Z. Now back to the show.
Okay. We were talking about how Janet Sobel did drip paintings before Jackson Pollack, but when reading your book, one of the things that I liked that you highlighted is before the abstract expressionists, there were women making very modern paintings long before any of these people. Let’s talk about that.
Jennifer Dasal:
Yes. So I always say that there’s nothing that art historians love more than debate like who came first? Was it this guy? And is this guy the greatest painter of X century? Things like that. We love to argue about things like that. And one of the biggest arguments is basically when was abstraction born? Who was the first abstract painter? And a lot of people usually say that Wassily Kandinsky, Russian painter, was the first guy to really go for it-
Miriam Schulman:
Because he was a guy.
Jennifer Dasal:
Exactly. He was a guy, a white guy, European and so people just go like, “Oh yeah, for sure. He was the first.” But over the last couple of decades, really mostly in the last 10 years for sure, people have started to discover that there are some women, and two in particular that I highlight in my book. One is named Georgiana Houghton who was a British painter and the other is Hilma af Klint who is Swedish. And if her name sounds familiar to anybody it’s because there was a huge solo retrospective of her work at the Guggenheim, I guess it was about three years ago now. And it broke all of the records for the Guggenheim. It was their most highly successful exhibition ever. And what was really interesting was when I was looking up how well that exhibition did, I learned that prior to that, the most popular exhibition they had had was an exhibition of Kandinsky’s works. So-
Miriam Schulman:
[crosstalk 00:14:38] interesting.
Jennifer Dasal:
Really interesting, but she was creating what we would basically call or deem totally abstract paintings at least a couple of decades before Kandinsky. And in the case of Georgiana Houghton, she was doing it about half a century before both of them. And neither of these women knew each other. They’ve never met. They don’t seem to have known about each other’s works of art, but they were both creating these very abstract works for the sake of it. And the thing that I think is also additionally, totally fascinating about them is that both of them were involved again, very separately, in the spiritualist movement and both of them said that they had some kind of spiritual guide who was helping them to create their works of art. So it’s like they were being mediums, but for art. So instead of doing automatic writing or using a Ouija board, they were using their art materials to create works of art.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s actually not really a new concept because Plato talked about divine intervention as something to create works of art.
Jennifer Dasal:
Yes.
Miriam Schulman:
Would you like to say more about that? I don’t like to pretend to be the expert when I have an expert right here, so.
Jennifer Dasal:
Oh, I thought you were totally on, on that. That’s exactly right. I mean, that was part of where the word genius comes from was that it’s this idea of a spirit. And for the longest time it was thought that it would be this external force, this external spirit that would give you that inspiration or act as some kind of muse. But it really around the Renaissance became subsumed more into the idea of the artist himself or herself, but mostly himself, being the genius because it became all about the person, human at that point and what human abilities could create and what humans could make. So, yeah, it definitely is something that is not rare, I suppose you could say, but it was, I think reached such a huge height in the 19th century with everybody really getting into the idea behind spiritualism and wanting to see if they could contact the dead and reach into another realm.
So what’s really interesting is that both of these women, both Houghton and af Clint both said that they had different spirits that were guiding them, but after about 10 years or so af Clint backed away from that. And part of that was because she was receiving criticism, including from people that she highly respected in the spiritualist movement and so she started taking more ownership of the works that she created from that point forward. But Georgiana Houghton never did that. She completely went her almost entire life up to that point. She really didn’t stop painting until she was a little bit older, I would say, but she firmly said, “No, no, I’m not making this, these spirit guides. These other artists actually are the ones who are working toward and through me.” And one of the artists that she said was acting as her guide is none other than Titian, which is not a small name. I mean, she’s actually saying that these famous Renaissance painters were her own guides, which is really interesting.
Miriam Schulman:
Being an artist myself, sometimes we do feel that the art isn’t really ours, like if we’re touched by a muse. I know JK Rowling talked about how she just felt like the Harry Potter series got downloaded to her sometimes with artists because of that feeling. It can lead very easily to imposter syndrome because when you feel that another force has gone through you, then there’s that feeling of, “What if I can’t do it again? What if I’m not touched by a muse? What if it’s not really mine?”
Since I work with a lot of artists who suffer with imposter syndrome and I’m not a real artist, I just want you to know that it’s partly because of this feeling that these muses are working through you. Sometimes can lead to that feeling that you can’t take ownership for it.
Jennifer Dasal:
Oh my gosh. And see, this is what I love. I love speaking with artists because I am not one myself. It is like this magical thing that you all do. So I love hearing that perspective because I would not have known that.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, one of the things that I do in my own practice that I tell artists to do is, sometimes it really is helpful to turn off your conscious brain, your inner critic. So when you’re at work, maybe people are working right now if they’re listening to us. I think it’s very helpful to listen to podcasts as you’re working, because you’re not listening to your mind chatter, and it really allows your subconscious to go to work and it will do the work. And then when you finish, like, “Oh, I did that?” But you did do it. It’s just you’ve turned off that critical brain. I want to circle back to the Guggenheim exhibit, which I did see. [crosstalk 00:19:29] I do live outside of New York, if you can’t tell by this accent. I mean, come on. It blew me away. And the most fun I had was, she had created sketches of how she wanted the art to be displayed. And I don’t know if she had a premonition of the Guggenheim, but she basically had imagined this circular temple where her art would be displayed. Can you say more about that?
Jennifer Dasal:
Absolutely. It is mind blowing. She wanted it to be this spiral that just ascended, as if you’re rising up into the heavens. And so it’s amazing to think that, like you called it a premonition, but she ended up having this huge record breaking show. And really the show that I think for most of us introduced us to her work in the first place in the Guggenheim where you’re literally traversing this spiral ramp that just goes up and up. That’s what the galleries are. So it is completely amazing. And if there’s any coincidence there, I mean, it’s undeniable. I think that is fantastic.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, it was perfect. She had this whole thing where her spirits had told her to hide the art away and only display it for the temple and she was creating art just for this purpose. Thankfully the art world remembers her now.
Jennifer Dasal:
She is, I think, one of the big superstars really now, which is fantastic. Better late than never is always obviously the way to go when it comes for women artists and a lot of artists of color and different backgrounds who we don’t know about because they get pushed aside a little bit because you have that main narrative that keeps getting regurgitated in universities and in books. There’s a lot of work that still needs to be done, but at least we’re making progress. We do know the name of Hilma af Klint now. We do know about Georgiana Houghton, Rosa Bonheur, Janet Sobel. So it’s really exciting to have the opportunity to learn about all these fantastic artists who 10 years ago, five years ago, I didn’t know about.
Miriam Schulman:
Were you able to travel to see the Alice Neel exhibit that happened?
Jennifer Dasal:
I’m so sad. Unfortunately, no. I’ve been reading about it in the newspaper, but that’s as close as I’ve gotten to it. Did you see it?
Miriam Schulman:
[inaudible 00:21:48] It’s so great.
Jennifer Dasal:
I know, I know I’m dying. I live in North Carolina, so it’s more of a trek for sure for me, but I can’t wait to start traveling up to New York again and just immerse myself in museums. That’s one of my favorite things.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. I saw it right when it opened and I think that was before I had my vaccine and they were letting people into the Met. The two women behind me were very chatty about things I didn’t want to hear about. I don’t remember what they’re going on and on about. I was like, “You see that yellow sticker on the ground? That’s six feet.” And it’s not that I was worried about getting sick. I just wanted my space. I didn’t want them in my ear. And I had like an excuse to tell them like, “Back off.”
Jennifer Dasal:
Right.
Miriam Schulman:
I’m going to definitely miss that. Let me look at the art because what’s really nice when you go to the museums, even when you have to wait in line, it’s not like Disney World. You actually get to see art while you’re waiting in line because you’re in the hallways with, I think that hallway has the Joan of Arc and some Rodin sculptures. It’s really nice. I was just looking at stuff and I wanted to be in my peace, not hearing about their six-year-old medical issues or whatever it was they were talking about.
Jennifer Dasal:
I have heard that from so many people though that that is one of the perks. It’s weird to be able to say that there have been perks to the pandemic, but that is definitely a very small silver lining because people have been telling me that they have this more intimate experience with works of art because you’re not craning over two dozen people to look at the same painting or sculpture. You do get to have that space to get in there a little bit more. If there’s one thing that within the art world that I wish would translate over and stay is, I wish that would stay. I’m not sure how you can do that sustainably for a very long period of time. But I mean, I would love to go into a gallery to see a big show and have some breathing room again.
Miriam Schulman:
When I went to see the Bisa Butler show, which was… It was not in a big gallery. It was in a small gallery out here in Katonah. They had taped boxes and only one person was allowed to stand in the box at a time. It was just such a luxury, just savoring that because, like you said, I know it’s not sustainable. And especially the museums have lost so much money. They do have to make it up. They’re not going to be able to keep the crowds down once the world opens up again. To make sure we give proper due, the other exhibition that I don’t think it’s still in New York, but Julie Mehretu’s exhibition at the Whitney was a good one as well. I enjoyed many of those pieces. Just so people know she is Ethiopian born, right? She’s an American artist, but she’s from Ethiopia, a modern artist.
This is so much fun having you here. I like love talking about all this stuff. I want to make sure my listeners know to go check out your book, Art Curious. If you enjoyed the stories that we talked about today, you will find so many more in her book and also on her podcast, Art Curious. So we will link both the book and her podcast in the show notes. We’ll try to include as many of the artworks we talked about today as well, schulmanart.com/159. If you liked this episode, come join me in the artist incubator mastermind. It’s my private coaching program for emerging and professional artists. If you’re disappointed with your art sales and you’re looking to master the art of sales and marketing, I actually have two tracks. I have the mastermind and self study, but I am taking applications for the mastermind because it is by application only. To see if you qualify, go to schulmanart.com/biz. That’s B-I-Z. Alrighty, Jennifer, do you have any last words for my listeners before we call this podcast complete?
Jennifer Dasal:
Yes. I want to tell everybody to stay curious because there is so much exciting work out there to see and so much to be inspired by.
Miriam Schulman:
Beautiful. Thank you so much for joining me. All right, everyone. Next week we have the one and only Andrea Owen. Trust me, you don’t want to miss it. She just came out with her third book, Make Some Noise, and we are talking all about women empowerment. So if you liked this conversation, there’s more where that came from. Make sure you hit the plus sign if you are in iTunes in your podcast app or follow on the other ones. If you’re feeling extra generous, please leave me a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps other people find the show. And if you pop your Instagram handle at the end of the review, I’ll even give you a shout out over on my IG Story.
All right, my friend, thank you so much for being with me here today. I’ll see you, same time, same place next week. Stay inspired.
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