Statement

In his article appearing in the March, 2006, issue of Art in America, titled “Runaway Totals at Fall Auctions,” author David Ebony reports on the fine art market’s record-breaking total of $765.3 million garnered by three major New York City auction houses, namely Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips de Pury & Company. In the sale of Impressionist and Modern Art, the top price of $22.4 million went for Toulouse-Lautrec’s painting of a woman washing clothes, titled The Laundress. Monet’s Water Lilies sold for $14 million; Cezanne’s Apples and Cake, $10.3 million; Picasso’s portrait of Sylvette on a Green Chair, $8.1 million; and Miro’s abstract painting in “green, yellow, and red” sold for $7.7 million. While any of these pictures of people, flowers, apples, or cake might have been painted by women artists, they were not. The one piece of art from the Impressionist and Modern category painted by a woman, and mentioned by Ebony in his article, was Cache-Cache, painted by Berthe Morisot in 1873. It sold for $5.2 million, a record auction price for the artist, but considerably less than prices paid for the work of her male colleagues. Clearly, an examination of individual selling prices reveals that artworks made by men are valued more highly than those made by women. It may be interesting to note that Morisot married Eugene Manet, the younger brother of Edouard; and, as her brother-in-law’s protégé, she was able to gain admission to the inner circle of the group known as the French Impressionists; and, through her association with them, earned validation for her work.

Also in 1873, while Morisot was at the height of her career, a book of engravings was published in Paris, in a limited edition of 1000, commissioned by a Monsieur John W. Wilson to reproduce his extensive collection of “tableaux anciens et modernes.” It includes works by such masters as Delacroix, Gainsborough, Hals, Poussin, Rembrandt, Turner, and Watteau, but not a single painting by a woman artist. Interestingly, a painting by Morisot’s great-grandfather, Jean-Honore Fragonard, is reproduced, bearing the title Cache-Cache, and depicting children playing hide-and-seek. In exploring the notion of art as precious commodity, I have embellished these undoubtedly valuable antique engravings with collage elements, rendering them uniquely my own, and, quite possibly, completely worthless. Originally priced at 40 francs, the book’s frontispiece declares that profits from its sale shall be used to benefit the poor. Widows and orphans aside, the engravings now serve as a subtle feminist comment on the consistently male-dominated art market.
 

– Joanna Thomas