Revised Edition: Maud Sulter
These works depict three artists whose work is central to The Women’s Art Collection: Mary Kelly, Maud Sulter and Lubaina Himid. Each portrait is painted in sumi ink on a torn page of Janson’s textbook, the artist-sitter gazing outward towards the viewer. Woodbury’s depiction of the artist's direct gaze is an important strategy to reflect the agency of these artists who have historically been undervalued and made invisible in the art historical canon. Choosing the page is an important part of Woodbury's process when creating these portraits. Although constrained by the author of the book onto which the portraits are painted, Woodbury attempts to align the text and images on the page to reflect the artist in the portrait. She uses black ink to paint so as to reflect the black and white illustrations in Janson’s textbook, and embed these women into the art historical narrative from which they were excluded in the first place.
In 1985/6 Mary Kelly’s series Extase was acquired by °Ç¸ç³Ô¹Ï (then New Hall) after the American artist undertook a residency at the College in collaboration with Kettle’s Yard. This acquisition inspired the original artist campaign in 1991, which was to be the foundation of The Women’s Art Collection. Among the first artists to donate their work were Maud Sulter and Lubaina Himid, then in their twenties, and just starting out on their artistic careers.
