National Libraries Day. But do you support your local library? Do I?

Today is national libraries day. Every day seems to be national something-or-other day, I usually ignore them, but this one struck chord, and not a comfortable one. I last visited my local library almost a year ago, which is too long. And that was just to borrow a travel guide to take on holiday to Crete because I didn't want to entrust my laptop to the kindly carefulness of baggage handlers.

I like to tell myself I live in the wrong place. If the local library was within walking distance of my home, I'd go every week. That's what I tell myself because I used to live within easy walking distance of out local library in Stony Stratford, but that was almost two decades ago. When we first moved there, the library was tiny, housed in a little Victorian gothic building which had originally been the fire station. The rise of the new town of Milton Keynes led to Stony Stratford being given a larger modern library and I visited twice weekly and introduced my three children to the joys of libraries, all before they were two years old.

But the children grew up, we moved and my tastes changed. Today I read less fiction and I mostly need academic libraries for my research, and I buy books from bookshops, rather than borrowing them. I admit to also buying books online, but from Abebooks rather than Amazon. And my favourite bookshop is the Oxfam bookshop in the town centre. I probably own as many books as some small libraries.

Happy Birthday to Sophie Taeuber-Arp!

Although today she is not amongst the most famous of the 31 Women, Sophie Taeuber-Arp is arguably one of the most significant. In honour of Sophie's birthday I have updated my blog post from last year.

http://sugswritersblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/sophie-taeuber-arp-project-31-women.html

Birthdays of the 31 Women

This list is of the artists whose biographies I've so far posted. All entries remain on the blog and I may update them from time to time if something needs correcting, or if some kind reader contacts me with further information. The object of the project is particularly to get the lesser known artists into the public eye, so information about these is especially welcome.

The remaining six of the 31 artists are listed at the  bottom, they will appear on their birthdays later this year.

1 - Gypsy Rose Lee   8 Jan 1911(or 19 Feb1912?) - 26 April 1970
2 - Sophie Taeuber-Arp  19 Jan 1889  - 13 Jan 1943     

3 - Buffie Johnson    20 Feb 1912  - 11 August 2006    

4 - Julia Thecla        28 Feb 1896 - 29 June 1973       

5 - Elizabeth Eyre de Lanux   20 March 1894 - 8 Sept 1996 

6 -   Valentine Hugo  26 March 1897 - 1968

7 - Leonora Carrington  6 April 1917 -   25 May 2011   

8 - Sonja Sekula   8 April 1918  - 25 April 1963       

9 -  Hazel McKinley   13 April 1903  - 15 June 1995    

10 - Suzy Freylinghuysen   7 May 1911  -  19 March 1988 

11 - Djuna Barnes    12 June 1892 -   18 June 1982  

12 - Meraud Guevara   24 June 1904  - 1993   

13 - Kay Sage   25 June 1898  - 8 January 1963  

14 - Frida Kahlo   6 July 1907  - 13 July 1954        

15 - Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven   12 July 1874  - 14 Dec 1927     

16 -  Hedda Sterne    4 Aug 1910 - 8 April 2011        

17 - Irene Rice–Pereira  15 Aug 1902  -  11 January 1971        

18 - Pegeen Vail        18 Aug 1924  -    1 March 1967  
19 - Dorothea Tanning  25 Aug 1910 -  31 January 2012      

20 - Xenia Cage   28 Aug 1913  -   26 Sept 1995     
21 - Meret Oppenheim   6 Oct 1913 - 15 November 1985          

22 - Milena Barili   5 Nov. 1909  - 6 March 1945      
23 - Anne Harvey   Nov 1916  -   1967        
24 - Jacqueline Lamba  17 Nov 1910  -  20 July 1993    
25 - Gretchen Schoeninger Corazzo  born 18 Dec 1913 and celebrated her centenary in 2013 

The remaining artists:
Aline Meyer Liebman - painter, photographer, patron
Barbara (Reis) Poe-Levee - painter, collector
Esphyr Slobodkina - painter, sculptor
Leonor Fini - painter, designer
Louise Nevelson - sculptor
Maria Elena Vieira da Silva - painter

Another new header picture - Yinka Shonibare

My latest header picture shows Fabric-Ation, a work by British Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare, in the formal garden of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park last year.

Born in London in 1962, Yinka Shonibare moved to Nigeria when he was three, later returning to the UK to be an art student. He graduated from Goldsmiths in the 1990's. His colourful, witty sculptures and installations comment particularly on the history and effects of colonialism and post-colonialism.

"His work shrewdly explores and confounds stereotypes of race and class, engaging with ideas around identity and authenticity as well as dislocation, multiculturalism, global food production and revolution, often addressed through playful conceits." YSP website -
http://www.ysp.co.uk/ysp-media/press-releases/uks-largest-ever-exhibition-by-yinka-shonibare-mbe

The 31 Women - re. Barbara Poe Levee and my request yesterday

Following information from Paula Thompson, I now know that only one of the 31 Women is still with us in person.  The remaining member of this select and important group is Gretchen (Schoeninger) Corazzo, who celebrated her 100th birthday two weeks ago.

Sadly, painter and collector Barbara (Reis) Poe Levee has died at the age of 91, in the autumn of 2013.  I will post Barbara Poe Levee's biography to coincide with her birthday, in March 2014.

I'd be pleased to hear from anyone who knew Barbara or can tell me anything about her paintings, as I have never seen any of them. Anyone with information can email me - summerlok@btconnect.com  or post a comment below. Thank you.

The 31 Women, the Project So Far - and a request for help.

Summary.
In 2013 I've posted biographies of 25 out of the 31 Women. These have included luminaries such as Frida Kahlo and Leonora Carrington, the unlikely including Gipsy Rose Lee and the unknown with Gretchen Corazzo and Anne Harvey.

For anyone who has missed the point of the selection, the 31 Women all exhibited their work seventy years ago, at an exhibition in January 1943 at the Art of This Century Gallery in New York. This was the first exhibition dedicated to women artists of the avant-garde. The gallery itself was owned and run by Peggy Guggenheim who, though not an artist herself, was probably the most important one of a group of far-sighted women who collected and promoted modern art during the twentieth century. These included Betty Parsons, Louise Dryer and Aline Meyer Liebman, who was also one of the 31 Women.

Popularity
The most popular of my posts seem to be the following:-
1 Gypsy Rose Lee - She was the first I posted but still... not all the interest is in her artworks!
2 Leonora Carrington - I'm trying to promote Leonora as a British artist, she's woefully under-represented in the UK. 
3 Sonja Sekula - Surprisingly popular considering Sonja's obscurity, although her work is lovely.
4 Xenia Cage - Not so surprised about Xenia, considering the interest in John Cage.
5 Frida Kahlo - I'm just surprised that dear Frida is only number five!

For 2014
My research is almost complete, so there are only another six artists whose biographies will appear here, hopefully to coincide with their birthdays.

Look out for Esphyr Slobodkina, Leonor Fini, Maria Elena Vieira da Silva, Louise Nevelson, Aline Meyer Liebman and Barbara Poe Levee (formerly Barbara Reis).

I hope soon to turn this research into an actual book.

Help needed.
My request for help surrounds the last two artists, Aline Meyer Liebman and Barbara Poe Levee. I don't know either of their birthdays, just that they were born in 1879 and 1922 respectively. Also in the case of Barbara Poe Levee I have no information about her work as an artist or her exhibitions between 1945 and  2002.
Any information would be very welcome.

And a Very Happy 2014 to everyone!

Gretchen Corazzo celebrates her Centenary on 18 December 2013 - She is number twenty-five of the 31 Women

Artist and sculptor Gretchen Schoeninger Corazzo celebrates her one-hundredth birthday on 18 December 2013. Her century is being celebrated by a retrospective exhibition at the Box Factory for the Arts on Broad Street, St. Joseph, Michigan. Gretchen is an American sculptor, photographer, illustrator, collage and assemblage artist, printmaker and a musician.  She is another of those multi-talented women who have been active artists all their lives, yet have somehow managed to evade both fame and notoriety. In her nineties she stopped making the large concrete sculptures which formed her output for some time. As a centenarian she still works daily on a smaller scale with collages.

Born on 18 December 1913 in Ravinia, Illinois, Gretchen’s life has spanned the entirety of twentieth century innovations in American art. She has created sculptures in the same vein as Louise Nevelson and Esphyr Slobodkina, working with found objects to form abstract constructions, as well as working in cement, clay and plaster.  Although today she is unknown outside her home state, she was involved with the wider avant-garde from an early stage.  Her husband, painter and architect Alexander Corazzo is hardly any better known than Gretchen so her obscurity cannot be blamed on him, unlike for example her friend Xenia Cage, who was conveniently ignored in the creation of the John Cage myth.

Gretchen’s talents were encouraged throughout her childhood. Her mother, Hester B. Hall was a schoolteacher and her father Joseph Schoeninger was an entrepreneur specialising in printing processes. Her parents wanted an unrestrictive education for their offspring and were quite prepared to move to a new area to put the children into a more progressive school, the family relocated several times. In 1922 Gretcehen and her siblings boarded at the Heidehoff Schule near Stuttgart in Southern Germany, whilst their father negotiated the bringing of the advanced rotogravure printing process from Germany to the States. This was a shrewd investment. The rotogravure process would become widely used in the newspaper and publishing industry and is still used today, printing everything from glossy magazines to vinyl floor coverings.