When stupid men spoil things (art related)

[DidoAndHerLament]

I like art & sculpture and when I lived further south, I spent many hours wandering round the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I loved Henry Moore's sculptures, although I sometimes felt a bit uncomfortable with his distortion of women's bodies. But I've just read this great article by Samira Ahmed

"In March the diaries of former Tate director John Rothenstein revealed that sculptor Henry Moore and fellow trustee and historian Kenneth ‘Civilisation’ Clark had rubbished the work of Barbara Hepworth. In 1945, Moore blocked the gallery buying one of her wooden sculptures. The same year, it bought seven of his.

It is a useful reminder that it wasn’t enough for some male artists to be valued in their own right, even when they dominated. They had to destroy the value of women artists struggling for recognition."

Ug. It's not a surprise I guess but it's always a bummer to find out yet another of the dwindling number of men I admire is/was in fact an ugly misogynist.

I remember reading a truly awful article about William Golding, who wrote Lord of the Flies, and being shocked. The book is so perceptive I assumed its author would be more civilised.

Perhaps she was too good for him.

The Hepworth (copies) at Snape have often been mistaken for Moore.

It is embarrassing for men when the person they have copied gains recognition, so they do what they can to undermine and discredit them. Fitzgerald is perhaps the most notorious for it but there are many others.

Ugh. Eric Gill is incredibly chilling to read about.

Plus the bbc logo I believe was his font design.

I read this yesterday and it really upset me.

So often we are told that women achieved nothing, but we are stopped at every turn by men. I read about some major research that a woman achieved that a bloke pinched of her too.

Her work was amazing too, I've had a tab open looking at it.

The older I get, the more disappointed I get in men.
This deserves shouted from the rooftops, along with all the other sexist crap men do.
They never bloody grow up.

So often we are told that women achieved nothing, but we are stopped at every turn by men. I read about some major research that a woman achieved that a bloke pinched of her too.

Jocelynn Bell Burnell? From wikipedia:

Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell DBE FRS FRSE FRAS (/bɜːrˈnɛl/; born 15 July 1943) is an astrophysicist from Northern Ireland who was credited with "one of the most significant scientific achievements of the 20th Century".[7] As a postgraduate student, she discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967.[8] The discovery was recognised by the award of the Nobel Prize in Physics to her thesis supervisor Antony Hewish[4][5] and to the astronomer Martin Ryle. Bell was excluded, despite having been the first to observe and precisely analyse the pulsars.

As boatyard points out, it's not just art- look at how James Watson rubbished the contribution of Rosalind Franklin to the discovery of the structure of dna. He stole her data, and then ignored her interpretation of where the backbones lay.
She didn't get a Nobel because she died of cancer at 37

I almost added Rosalind Franklin to my post for good measure. Another scandalous case.

It's depressing how many examples there are of this, across all areas. Especially when people (who am I kidding? I mean men) then use the lack of well known female artists, inventors as "proof" that men are superior.

It's probably a good idea to have examples at the ready to counter that attitude - and as positive role models for girls. I get a bit annoyed on 'famous women' type threads (not this one, because it's specifically about men stealing credit from women) when all too often people cite Rosalind Franklin but not Dorothy Hodgkin.

I recently read a brilliant novel about this. It’s called ‘The Blazing World’ by Siri Hustvedt.
It’s about an artist who is overlooked because she is a woman. The main character is wonderful. Obviously pure fiction, but lots of real life examples are mentioned throughout.

It’s called ‘The Blazing World’ by Siri Hustvedt. It’s about an artist who is overlooked because she is a woman.

You mean the lesser known but much better than her novelist husband Siri Hustvedt...yes she has front line experience of it!

Terf
Only just seen your comment.
When I told my husband how good the book was he said ‘I’ve heard of her, she’s Paul Auster’s wife’.
How I laughed.
Tbf I love his early novels.