Women Artists Working in Norway and Scandinavia: Yesterday and Today

Twenty years after the National Museum of Women in the Arts opened the exhibition At Centuries End: Norwegian Art and the Figurative Tradition in Washington D.C., the UK Friends of NMWA will host a special panel discussion and drinks reception during which we will return to the question: How well represented are women artists in Norway and Scandinavia in 2015 compared to their late nineteenth century forbears?
Experts from the commercial and academic art world, including MaryAnne Stevens (Art Historian and Curator) and Anna Grundberg (Director and co-founder of Sanne Grundberg Ltd), Julia Vance (Norwegian artist), and Emelie Hill (Swedish journalist with a special interest in women’s issues, women’s creativity and Anglo Scandinavian relations in the C21st.) will address how and why women artists working and exhibiting in Norway and Scandinavia during the fin-de-siècle managed to negotiate obstacles in their wake to become respected as professionals in their own right. Just over a century later, to what extent have women artists of the late modern and postmodern era succeeded in obtaining recognition for their own innovative role in the development of art and creativity during an age of experimental platforms for creativity and revised aspirations? From the early accomplishments of painters such as Kitty Kielland and textile artists such as Frida Hansen, to contemporary visual and installation artists such as AK Dolven and Camille Norment, we will ask:
–  In the supposedly socially democratic Scandinavian region, is it still valid to think, or talk, of gender as an obstacle or aid to success?
– Who were and who are the public and private collectors of women’s art in Scandinavia?
–  What sorts of media, genres, themes and theories did, and do, women artists employ to express their political or emotional ideologies?
–  Can an international reputation still aid progression for a woman artist?
–  In the way that their late nineteenth century counterparts once did, are Norwegian, Swedish and Danish women artists benefiting from a resurgence of interest in everything ‘Nordic’?
–  What defines ‘The Oslo Case’, (Henrik Plenge Jacobsen, 2013), and why is a formerly forgotten city becoming so attractive for artists from all over the Scandinavian region? How is the art market there run differently to that in Stockholm and Copenhagen – and for that matter, London?
The panel discussion will be moderated by Kitty Corbet Milward.  The event takes place in Central London — details to be provided with RSVP.
Places are limited so RSVP early.
Please RSVP with your name and postal address to  RSVP@UKFriendsofNMWA.org by 3 June.  Your place is only guaranteed upon receipt of a card which you must present with ID for entry.