Author Description

A groundbreaking catalogue for the exhibition co-organised by Museum Arnhem, Saarlandmuseum and the Belvedere, Vienna. Radical! Women Artists and Modernisms 1910 -1950 questions the concept of modern art as a linear development primarily driven by men. Instead, it brings artists from a wide range of backgrounds into a dialogue and thus opens up new perspectives on the diversity and crossborder dimension of modernism. The works featured here can be considered as not only bearing witness to rapidly advancing industrialisation, urbanisation and technological development but also reflecting the complexity and contradictions that came with emancipation and evolving gender roles. Regardless of their artistic expression or origin, these artists were united by the search for a new visual vocabulary in order to understand the rapidly changing world and respond to the pressing questions of their time. Their works became an act of rebellion against patriarchy, capitalism, fascism and colonialism. Featured artists include Gertrud Arndt, Louise Bourgeois, Claude Cahun, Benedetta Cappa, Elizabeth Catlett, Sonia Delaunay, Maya Deren, Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, Alexandra Exter, Leonor Fini, Trude Fleischmann, Erika Giovanna-Klien, Natalia Goncharova, Hannah Höch, Käthe Kollwitz, Lotte Laserstein, Tamara de Lempicka, Alice Lex- Nerlinger, Jeanne Mammen, Marlow Moss, Hanna Nagel, Alice Neel, Anton Prinner, Gazbia Sirry, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Dorothea Tanning, Charley Toorop, Toyen, Madiha Umar and Fahr-El-Nissa Zeid.