The artists’ collections – Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris and Robin F. Williams: We’ve Been Expecting You – are displayed in side-by-side galleries at Columbus Museum of Art through August 18.
When you witness depictions of women in popular art, you can recognize a pattern. Most of these pieces were created by men, as female artists were and still are underrepresented by many major art institutions.
While there have been strides made towards gender equality, a study of 31 museums across the U.S. conducted between 2008 and 2020 found that works by female-identifying artists made up a dismal 11 percent of acquisitions and around 15 percent of solo and group exhibitions.
To help combat this and bring more attention to female-identifying artists, the Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) welcomed a new exhibit this April.
The exhibit features two artists, Marie Laurencin and Robin F. Williams, who were born more than 100 years apart. They both created works that were women-centered and often portrayed their female subjects in a way that was boldly divergent from what was expected.
Laurencin was born in Paris in 1883 and began her career in the early 1900s. Williams was born in Columbus in 1984 and began her career in the early 2000s.
Laurencin and Williams don’t seem to have much in common when you look at the facts. But if you look deeper, the two share similarities in their artistry. Showing the collections side-by-side gives visitors a way to reflect on how women’s art has changed and inversely, what themes have prevailed over time.
Their artwork possesses a yearning for a different reality for women. Several works of each artist, such as Laurencin’s Women in the Forest and Williams’ Final Girls Exodus, suggest a peaceful reality without men at all.
Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris
This collection, organized by the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, PA, is the artist’s first major U.S. exhibition in 30 years. Many of the pieces came from the Marie Laurencin Museum in Tokyo, while others came from private collections.
The gallery shows Laurencin’s progression as an artist, from her early self-portraits to costumes and outfits made for a ballet performance titled Les Biches. Laurencin first appeared on the art scene during the time of Cubism and, while living in Paris, was in close circles with other now-famous artists such as Pablo Picasso.
© Fondation Foujita / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris 2023
The Shepherdesses by Marie Laurencin
Laurencin had romantic relationships with both men and women. It is no secret that Laurencin loved women she saw as beautiful and preferred to paint them over any other subject.
Her color palette heavily utilized pastels and the women she made portraits of were often fair-skinned and delicate with traditionally feminine features. Exemplary works include Raspberry, which is a part of the Columbus Museum of Art’s permanent collection and a portrait of early 1900s socialite, Lady Cunard.
What wasn’t traditional about her depictions of women was that there were no men around. For example, The Elegant Ball portrays two women as dance partners instead of a male and female pair.
Her art demonstrates Laurencin’s innermost ruminations on a utopian matriarchal society, with an emphasis on harmonious, and often romantic, relationships between women.
Robin F. Williams: We’ve Been Expecting You
We’ve Been Expecting You is unique because as you walk through the gallery, the subjects of the pieces seem to be observing you too. Many of the figures look human-adjacent but are not depicted realistically. This collection is purposefully a bit unsettling as if to say these women aren’t here for your viewing pleasure.
Through the gallery, we see Williams’ evolution as an artist between 2008 and 2024. Her earlier works, such as Boy With a Collar, focus on adolescent and child subjects, while much of her later work focuses on womanly subjects with pieces like Spa Night and Salad Lover.
Image courtesy of the artist and P·P·O·W, New York
Cold Brew by Robin F. Williams
Her techniques and mediums have varied throughout her career. Her experimentation with textured painting, reflections and metallic elements can make her work even more intriguing as these figures seemingly pop off the gallery walls.
Many of her pieces seem to take common gender portrayals and invert them. Bechdel Yetis depicts woman-like figures with large and bulky hands instead of the dainty hands typically seen in depictions of women. Her piece titled Cave Painting challenges the notion that men should be inherently active and aggressive as two working men are seen relaxing.
Williams’ art also touches on popular modern culture. For example, Vaping in the Rain could be seen as a commentary on youth nicotine use, and three pieces titled Siri Keeps the Faith, Siri Defends Her Honor and Siri Calls For Help show Williams’ human version of Apple’s female AI assistant Siri, made in the style of three iconic horror movies. These pieces have never been displayed together until now.
Maisie Fitzmaurice is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at mfitzmaurice@cityscenemediagroup.com
