FAMM

A whole museum for women’s art

There are some astonishing works in this museum, such as one of Frida Kahlo’s famous painted corsets (she had to wear a corset all her life after injuring her back in an accident) and a huge green and yellow canvas by Elaine de Kooning (she and her husband Willem were among the leaders of the action painting movement). These masterpieces are among the 500 paintings, sculptures and photographs by women artists collected by Christian Levett. He has transformed MACM, where he used to display his collections of busts, coins and antique armour in amusing juxtaposition with contemporary artworks, into a museum wholly devoted to women’s art. Why? “As I finished rereading a great classic of art history and turned the last page, I wondered: ‘But where are the women?’”, he says. For centuries women were confined to the roles of muse, wife or model for a male artist, or to working minor genres such as portraits, landscapes and scenes from daily life. Or, like Artemisia Gentileschi, simply ignored. Not until the late 19th century could they attend leading art schools and only in the past decade or so have museums begun to pay attention to their work. Since then, solo exhibitions of women’s art have mushroomed. FAMM is displaying some hundred artworks by 80 different women artists. There’s plenty to discover here, displayed in chronological order from the 19th century to today and from Berthe Morisot’s voluptuous Jeune fille allongée (1893) to the imaginative fantasy of Leonora Carrington in Mid-Day of the Canary (1967). Three other galleries are devoted to abstract art, Nouvelle Figuration and current art. Don’t miss Sarah Lucas’s fascinating sculpture Tit-Cat Down or Jenny Saville’s brilliant depiction of a mother with her fractious baby.