“I’ve always been a proponent of women artists. Shortly after I started at the museum, I did a two-semester survey of women artists, mostly relying on our collection, and it was focused on women artists in general. Then, over the past couple of years, we have been acquiring more works by women artists from Ohio, so, it pushed to take a deeper dive into this region of women artists,” said Jason Shaiman, curator of exhibitions at the art museum.
The exhibit “A Golden Time: Turn of the Century Ohio Women Artists” was also inspired by the donation of a work by a Columbus artist named Alice Schille, who was not previously a part of the museum’s permanent collection.
“It was a combination of a number of these things that led us to develop the exhibition,” Shaiman said. “The strength of our collection of Ohio women artists is based mostly in the Cincinnati region, and that makes sense, geographically, based on where Miami is located.”
The late 19th and early 20th centuries were a golden time for artists across Ohio. Many women with strong Ohio connections, including Elizabeth Nourse, Alice Schille, and Maria Longworth Nichols Storer, founder of Rookwood Pottery, helped Ohio obtain national recognition in the art world.
“We also have a strong collection of works by an artist named Annette Covington, who attended the Western College for Women, which is on the grounds where the Art Museum is located,” Shaiman said. “So, we have all this richness in our collections, and that really became the basis of what would be displayed in this exhibition.”
It was a time when women gained respect and recognition for their own artistic merits. Painting, ceramics, sculpture, printmaking, furniture design and woodworking became the most widely produced and celebrated art forms.
“The exhibition plays off this golden era of American history, but what I was also trying to get across was it was like some of these women struck gold because around this time was when many women artists were emerging as independent artists. They were breaking out of this mold that all they should be creating were pretty pictures to decorate their homes. They were really spreading their wings,” Shaiman said.
These women were announcing who they were, and making their contributions to the art world known, he said.
In addition to the rise of women artists in Ohio, many important art institutes and museums were founded to promote educational opportunities and venues for public appreciation of the arts.
Shaiman said the exhibition centers on works created from 1875 to 1925. It features 33 works by 19 different artists. The artwork focuses on portraiture, and genre scenes to landscapes. Some of the artists were also traveling abroad, focusing on foreign worlds.
“Some of the works are just so skillfully handled …what I really want people to get out of this, which is what I see, is that these are such highly accomplished artists, and people need to recognize the skill and aptitude, but I’m also in such admiration of the gumption of many of these women for taking the opportunities and making the opportunities at a time where they were still pretty limited in what they could do because of societal expectations,” said Shaiman.
The caliber of the work that the women were creating demonstrates their perseverance, he said.
“We wanted to recognize what Ohio women offered and not just for themselves, to make a name for themselves and to be recognized, but what they did to contribute to the art world, and to contribute to representing the world around them, and to explore those themes of diversity as well as overcoming obstacles and challenges,” Shaiman said.
How to go
What: “A Golden Time: Turn of the Century Ohio Women Artists” exhibition
When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, noon-5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-8 p.m. the second Wednesday of each month. Closed on Sundays, Mondays and university holidays
Where: Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum at Miami University, 801 S. Patterson Ave., Oxford
Cost: Free and open to the public. Visitor parking passes are available at the museum.
More info: (513) 529-2232 or at miamioh.edu/cca/art-museum. The exhibition and related programming are supported by a grant from the Miami Women Giving Circle. The Art Museum also received generous funding from Dick and Kathy Sollmann.
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