Intersections - (Rethinking Art's Histories) by Patricia Allmer (Hardcover)

About the Book

Demonstrates the significant roles taken by women artists within the history of modern and contemporary art, and expands and redefines conventional conceptions of both surrealist and modernist canons.

Book Synopsis

Featuring new essays by established and emerging scholars, Intersections: Women artists/surrealism/modernism redefines conventional surrealist and modernist canons by focusing critical attention on women artists working in and with surrealism in the context of modernism. In doing so it redefines critical understanding of the complex relations between all three terms.

The essays address work produced in a wide variety of international contexts and across several generations of surrealist production by women closely connected to the surrealist movement or more marginally influenced by it. Intersections explores work in a wide range of media, from painting and sculpture to film and fashion, by artists including Susan Hiller, Maya Deren, Birgit Jurgenssen, Aube Elléouët, Dorothea Tanning, Claude Cahun, Elsa Schiaparelli, Joyce Mansour, Leonor Fini, Mimi Parent, Lee Miller, Leonora Carrington, Ithell Colquhoun and Eileen Agar.

From the Back Cover

Intersections: Women artists/surrealism/modernism is the first anthology to focus critical attention on works by women artists working in and with surrealism in the wider context of modernism. The theorisation and discussion of these artists within these contexts opens up and challenges traditional debates on the relations between surrealism and modernism. It demonstrates the significant roles taken by women artists within the history of modern and contemporary art, and expands and redefines conventional conceptions of both surrealist and modernist canons.

Responding to the recent popularity of surrealism in major exhibitions, essays in the collection employ art-theoretical models and frameworks, and new art-historical and archive research, to analyse and offer insights into rarely-discussed works by artists from diverse international backgrounds whose careers span several generations of surrealist production across a wide variety of media, from painting and sculpture to film and fashion. Artists discussed include Susan Hiller, Maya Deren, Birgit Jürgenssen, Aube Elléouët, Dorothea Tanning, Claude Cahun, Elsa Schiaparelli, Joyce Mansour, Leonor Fini, Mimi Parent, Lee Miller, Leonora Carrington, Ithell Colquhoun, and Eileen Agar.

Featuring important new essays by leading scholars in the field and new and emerging critics, and including full-colour reproductions of rarely seen images, Intersections offers a lively and informative survey of its topic. The anthology will be required reading for art historians and undergraduate and post-graduate students interested in the histories of surrealism and modernism, and the complex and influential roles played in both by women artists.

Review Quotes

'The fluid navigation of diverse theoretical writing and close reading of lesser known works makes this volume both thought provoking and pleasurable.'
Dr. Christine Conley, Racar 42 (2017)

About the Author

Patricia Allmer is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Edinburgh