The artists connecting with the writings of Virginia Woolf
![Detail of a Linder portrait, comprising photographs, black and white, silver bromide print, on paper.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/cf5JXmT2jD222AFRTH9Gs7-415-80.jpg)
Growing up, Virginia Woolf spent family holidays in St Ives, and the Cornish town and surrounding coastal landscapes left a profound impression on the British modernist author, later becoming a constant reference in her writing – The Godrevy Lighthouse of St Ives Bay is famously transposed to Scotland in her 1927 novel To The Lighthouse.
As much as the rugged, rolling landscapes were the basis for Woolf’s settings, her fiction is equally well known for its symbolic interiors, most vivid in her seminal work, A Room of One’s Own.
Tate St Ives celebrates Woolf’s scenes and their metaphors in a major new exhibition; it's the first time that Woolf’s writing and feminism has been explored in this way, through the visions of more than 80 artists of the 19th and 20th centuries, not all of them blockbuster names, but including some, such as Laura Knight, Barbara Hepworth, Linder, Claude Cahun, and Woolf’s sister, the painter Vanessa Bell.
Blue Anemone, 1957, by Margaret Mellis, oil on board.
Going back to 1854 – three decades before Woolf was born – the works trace a trajectory of female frustration with the patriarchy. For most of that history, as Woolf herself wrote, ‘Anonymous was a woman’ – and many of these works received little attention in their day, and many of the artists have been neglected or forgotten.
Neatly divided into two ‘sections’, one looking outwards and the other in, there are many satisfying visual connections between Woolf’s room and the mustard Chintz sofa Ethel Sands painted in 1910, or the view from Knight’s rainy window. The fragmented self-portraits of feminine identity as depicted by Linder or Cahun’s photographs, meanwhile draw on Woolf’s ambivalence about a woman’s physical space and social role. There is further, meandering symbiosis between Woolf’s words, the undulating landscapes outside the gallery, and the crafted curves of Paule Vézelay’s plaster sculptures, among others.
One hundred years on from the historic moment women in Britain could vote for the first time, the exhibition is also, of course, an opportunity to reflect back on the progress women have made in society in terms of rights, and how these changes have affected their image of themselves – proud, dejected, determined, disabused – and how they perceive their position in the world.
Spanish Landscape with Mountains, c1924, by Dora Carrington, oil paint on canvas.
The Chintz Couch, c1910-1, by Ethel Sands, oil paint on board.
Interior with a Table, 1921, by Vanessa Bell, oil paint on canvas. © Tate
Collapsing New People, 2017, by France-Lise McGurn, acrylic, pearls and semi-precious stones.
Soil like toppled alphabets, 2016, by Sara Barker.
INFORMATION
‘Virginia Woolf: An Exhibition Inspired By Her Writings’ is on view at Tate St Ives until 29 April. The exhibition will run at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, from 26 May – 16 September; and Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, from 2 October – 9 December. For more information, visit the Tate St Ives website
ADDRESS
Tate St Ives
Porthmeor Beach
Saint Ives TR26 1TG
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
Charlotte Jansen is a journalist and the author of two books on photography, Girl on Girl (2017) and Photography Now (2021). She is commissioning editor at Elephant magazine and has written on contemporary art and culture for The Guardian, the Financial Times, ELLE, the British Journal of Photography, Frieze and Artsy. Jansen is also presenter of Dior Talks podcast series, The Female Gaze.
-
‘Hedonistic and avant-garde’: Rabanne’s Julian Dossena on the legacy of the chainmail 1969 bag
Paco Rabanne’s 1969 chainmail handbag encapsulates the late designer’s futuristic, space-age style. Current creative director Julien Dossena tells Wallpaper* about the bag’s particular pleasures
By Jack Moss Published
-
Postcard from Paris: Olympic fever takes over the streets
On the eve of the opening ceremony of Paris 2024, our correspondent shares her views from the streets of the capital about how the event is impacting the urban landscape.
By Minako Norimatsu Published
-
The Mercury Prize nominees for 2024 have been revealed
Charli XCX, The Last Dinner Party and Beth Gibbons are amongst this year's nominees
By Charlotte Gunn Published
-
Harlem-born artist Tschabalala Self’s colourful ode to the landscape of her childhood
Tschabalala Self’s new show at Finland's Espoo Museum of Modern Art evokes memories of her upbringing, in vibrant multi-dimensional vignettes
By Millen Brown-Ewens Published
-
Artist Peggy Kuiper’s impactful figurative works explore her memories and emotional landscape with striking visual intensity
Peggy Kuiper presents ‘The Conversation That Never Took Place’ at Reflex in Amsterdam, featuring over 25 new works (until 13 July)
By Simon Chilvers Published
-
Don’t miss: Hayv Kahraman intertwines colonialism and botany in London
Artist Hayv Kahraman draws parallels between colonial botany and her experiences as an Iraqi refugee transplanted into Europe, at Pilar Corrias in London
By Hannah Silver Published
-
The ageing female body and the cult of youth: Joan Semmel in Belgium
Joan Semmel’s ‘An Other View’ is currently on show at Xavier Hufkens, Belgium, reimagining the female nude
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Guglielmo Castelli considers fragility and violence with painting series in Venice
Guglielmo Castelli’s exhibition ‘Improving Songs for Anxious Children’ at Palazzetto Tito, Venice, explores childhood as the genesis of discovery
By Sofia Hallström Published
-
‘Accordion Fields’ at Lisson Gallery unites painters inspired by London
‘Accordian Fields’ at Lisson Gallery is a group show looking at painting linked to London
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
All eyes on Christina Quarles, the painter inventing a new figurative language
Los Angeles-based artist Christina Quarles is in her element, with two major solo shows underway at Hamburger Bahnhof and Hauser & Wirth Menorca
By Emily McDermott Published
-
Portraits of dogs: new Wallace Collection show is pooch perfect
‘Portraits of Dogs from Gainsborough to Hockney’ at the Wallace Collection (until 15 October) offers paws for thought on the human devotion to dogs throughout the centuries
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published