Early Women Curators Making the Museum in the Twentieth Century

Introduction. Early Women Curators – Making the Museum in the Twentieth Century

Laia Anguix-Vilches and Rachel Esner

Part 1: Becoming Professionals

1 “Suffragette Militancy” for the “Aesthetic” Museum: Early Museum Women in Germany (1900-33)

Kristina Kratz-Kessemeier and Andrea Meyer,

2   Behind the Scenes: Women in Parisian Museums in the Early Twentieth Century

Charlotte Foucher-Zarmanian

3  Women Curators in Britain, c. 1945-70: Career Trajectories in a Shifting Educational Landscape

Hans Hönes and Émilie Oléron Evans

4  Agents of Change: Australian Women Curators (1940-70)

Catherine Speck, Catherine De Lorenzo, Alison Inglis and Joanna Mendelssohn

Part 2: Addressing the Public

5 Educational and Personal Vision: Eliza Metcalf and the Antiquities Collection at the Rhode Island School of Design

Ilaria Trafficante

6, “La Dame de Mariemont” – Germaine Faider-Feytmans: A Pioneer Curator of the Mariemont Royal Museum (1940-68)

Valentine Liminia and Nicholas Amoroso

7 Exhibitions for the Free World Abroad and at Home: Annemarie Pope’s SITES during the Early Cold War

Jennifer Way

8 Ayala Gordon: Curating Child-Centered Education at the Israel Museum

Osnat Zukerman Rechter

Part 3: Working in Turbulent Times

9 Lessons in Moral Values: Monuments Woman Edith A. Standen and the Ethics of Resistance

Iñigo Salto Santamaría

10 From New Woman to Socialist Woman: Zora Simić Milovanović’s Curatorial Politics

Jasmina Čubrilo and Ana Ereš

11 Eva Šefčáková – “Disruptor of the Socialist Social Order”?

Jana Oravcová

12 Embodying the Global and the Local: Grace Morley at the National Museum of India

Salila Kulshreshtha

Part 4: The Making of Collections of Modern Art

13 Curating Modernity: Cornelia B. Sage, Temporary Exhibitions, and the Making of the Albright Art Gallery (1910-24)

Ulrike Müller and Camille Mona Paysant

14 Ellen Duncan and the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin

Philip Mc Evansoneya

15 Helene Kröller-Müller: Four Curatorial Scenarios and a Museum of Modern Art

Rachel Esner

16 Mercedes Garberi: Introducing Contemporary Art to Milan in the 1970s

Veronica Locatelli

Biography

Laia Anguix-Vilches is a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University

Rachel Esner is associate professor of Art History and coordinator of the MA programme Curating Art and Cultures at the University of Amsterdam

"This important volume puts women at the heart of twentieth-century museums and galleries. Acknowledging and interrogating the structural inequalities tending to make women museum workers invisible and marginal, it nevertheless shows how central they were to the development of art institutions in this period. Its critical, international perspective recuperates women’s contribution to the global museum without essentializing. It will be indispensable reading for anyone wondering how we got to the museum of today."

Kate Hill, School of Humanities and Heritage, University of Lincoln

"Early Women Curators is of immense importance, as it is the first book to systematically examine, from a transnational perspective, a field of activity both fundamental to the museum and predominantly carried out by women. Through outstanding case studies, the volume reveals the extent to which female curators shaped the development of the modern museum, laying its methodological and practical foundations. It counters the structurally conditioned invisibility of these highly professional workers, whose roles have often been characterized as merely “servile” or “supporting.” It sheds light on their individual achievements as well as on the specific conditions under which they worked and the overarching patterns in their practice and careers. Its findings highlight not only the contributions of women curators but will also help to transform the prevailing image of museum work in general."

Annette Dorgerloh, Humboldt University of Berlin

"Early Women Curators - Making the Museum in the Twentieth Century has the makings of a classic in the fields of museology and art history. It marks a paradigm shift in museum history, challenging the idea of the modern museum as a masculine institution. The authors move beyond viewing women’s curatorial practice as an obstacle race, examining instead the career patterns and activities that defined their work. Women’s contributions were essential in transforming the early twentieth-century museum into a truly public institution. This volume is a need-to-read, and deserves a permanent place on students’ reading lists."

Jenny Reynaerts, Former Senior Curator and founder of the Women of the Rijksmuseum project