‘Indiana Jane’ strikes again

‘Indiana Jane’ strikes again

I recently sat down with Jane Fortune, author of Invisible Women: Forgotten Artists of Florence, due out later this month from The Florentine Press. ‘Indiana Jane' has spent the past five years scouring archives and haunting the recesses of some of Florence's most revered museums in an effort

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Thu 22 Oct 2009 12:00 AM

I recently sat
down with Jane Fortune, author of Invisible Women: Forgotten Artists of
Florence
, due out later this month from The Florentine Press. ‘Indiana
Jane’ has spent the past five years scouring archives and haunting the recesses
of some of Florence’s
most revered museums in an effort to uncover every single ‘hidden’  work of art by women.

 

 

How did the idea for the book
come about?

 

Several years ago I was wandering through a
book fair at Palazzo Corsini and came across a volume in English entitled Suor
Plautilla Nelli: The First Woman Painter in Florence by Jonathan Nelson. I
snapped it up and was instantly intrigued by the story of a sixteenth-century
nun whose works were virtually unknown to most Florentines. I began to wonder
how many artworks by unknown or ‘invisible’ women might be hidden in the city’s
churches and museums. That was when my quest to learn more about women artists
in Florence
became a personal mission: to help invisible women artists in Florence
become more fully visible.

 

How does one begin to search for ‘hidden’
artwork in
Florence?

 

Because scholars and museum
administrators have rarely focused on gender when classifying artwork, I knew
that it was going to take some serious digging in the archives of local
museums. Luckily, through my work with The Florence Committee of the National
Museum of Women in the Arts I have developed relationships with the majority of
the women museum directors in the city. Every director was extremely generous
with her time and resources when she learned of my mission to create a ‘women
artists trail’ spotlighting art by women. Some even turned their computer
databases over to me and said, ‘Go for it!’ Others showed me handwritten
archives-‘systems’ of index cards and ledger books. 

 

What were some of the biggest obstacles you
faced in doing your research?

 

One of the most difficult
things was that many of the artists cited in museum archives are listed by
first initial and last name. Obviously this isn’t a problem for well-known
individuals, but what about lesser-known artists whom even the archivists have
never heard of? Does ‘G’ stand for ‘Giovanni’ or ‘Giovanna’? Sometimes even
further research doesn’t provide the true identity of the artist.

The greatest difficulty was the inconsistency among
the various archives. Although directors and archivists made themselves
available for questions and provided information, there is simply no
consistency within the archives themselves, making research extraordinarily
difficult.

 

What is your response to Linda Nochlin’s
oft-quoted question, ‘Why have there been no great women artists?’

 

There absolutely have been great women artists throughout history; it is simply a question of poor access.
For centuries, women’s artwork has been relegated to dark, unprotected corners
of museum storerooms, where rats scurry and rain drips on canvases caked with
dirt and pigeon droppings.

 

To our knowledge, this book is the first that
has begun to catalogue works of art by women in
Florence.
What are your hopes of finishing what you started?

 

First, I would like to stress
that this is just the beginning of the project; it is far from completion. The
book is the result of five years of research in the city’s archives and is
really a starting point to reclaiming every single piece of art by women in
order to fully celebrate their accomplishments. I hope my work serves as a
rallying cry to all those who share this mission and would like to be part of
making these women truly visible.

 

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