Jennifer Higgie Knihy

Until the twentieth century, the idea that women in the West have always made art was rarely cited as a possibility. Yet they have--and, of course, continue to do so--often against tremendous odds, from laws and religion to the pressures of family and public disapproval. In The mirror and the palette, Jennifer Higgie introduces us to a cross-section of women artists who embody the fact that there is more than one way to understand our planet, more than one way to live in it and more than one way to make art about it. Spanning 500 years, biography and cultural history intertwine in a narrative packed with tales of rebellion, adventure, revolution, travel and tragedy enacted by women who turned their back on convention and lives lives of great resilience, creativity and bravery. Illustrated are self-portraits of Marcia from Giovanni Boccaccio De mulieribus claris, Catharine van Hemessen, Sofonisba Anguissola, Judith Leyster, Artemisia Gentileschi, Elisabetta Sirani, Mary Beale, Rosalba Carriera, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Angelica Kauffman, Mari Bashkirtseff, Gwen John, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Helene Schjerfbeck, Suzanne Valadon, Margaret Preston, Nora Heysen, Amrita Sher-Gil, Leonora Carrington, Loïs Maillou Jones, Rita Angus, Frida Kahlo, and Alice Neel

'Endlessly intriguing . . . I was enchanted' - DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Illuminating in every sense of the word' - John Higgs In an illuminating blend of memoir and art history, The Other Side explores the lives and work of a group of extraordinary women artists. From the twelfth-century mystic Hildegard of Bingen and the nineteenth-century spiritualist Georgiana Houghton to the pioneering Hilma af Klint, these women all - in their own unique ways - shared the same goal: to communicate with, and learn from, other dimensions. Weaving in and out of their myriad lives, Jennifer Higgie considers the solace of ritual, the gender exclusions of art history, the contemporary relevance of myth, the boom in alternative ways of understanding the world and the impact of spiritualism on feminism and contemporary art.

Full of historical quotes, this book contains 750 amusing insults grouped together by category.

Hilma af Klint: The Secret Paintings is published in association with a major survey of the remarkable work of this visionary Swedish-born artist (1862-1944) drawn from the Hilma af Klint Foundation in Sweden. Af Klint is now widely regarded as one of the world’s pioneers of 20th-century abstract art.Hidden from view for decades, the startling rediscovery of af Klint’s work has captured the imagination of contemporary audiences, with a 2019 exhibition of af Klint’s work at the Guggenheim taking New York by storm.No one had created paintings like her before - so monumental in scale, with such radiant colour combinations, enigmatic symbols and otherworldly shapes. In an era of limited creative freedom for women, af Klint’s secret paintings became an outlet for her prodigious intelligence, spiritual quest and ground-breaking artistic vision.The book features over 200 illustrations including 125 artworks ranging from her monumental canvases to small watercolours (many which have not been shown or published before); pages from her beautifully detailed notebooks; as well as a selection of photographs and other images.Five essays and an illustrated chronology - written by curators, her biographer and other specialists - reveal new research on af Klint, her practise and her place in art history.

I did not write my life, and therefore cannot tell you in simple terms what happened to effect such change.I have left that task to the images that have fallen from my fingers since my youth.I have let them fall, so that one day they might be picked up.My pictures describe me correctly. Jennifer Higgie In 1842 an English artist accompanied a former mayor on a Grand Tour of Europe and the Middle East. Within a year he had become a devotee of the Egyptian god Osiris and murdered his beloved father, believing him to be an impostor. Bedlam is a novel inspired by a year in the life of Richard Dadd, a great Victorian painter and inmate of London's Bethlem Hospital – more commonly known as Bedlam. Higgie's prose is fragmentary yet lucid, and the novel evokes the inextricable beauty and terror of Dadd's sensory journey, while raising some of the philosophical questions it poses about art, language and other minds. Bedlam is a mystery story in which we search for clues as to how an individual might go from precocious talent to parricide. Oliver Harris, Times Literary Supplement Jennifer Higgie is co-Editor and staff writer of frieze magazine. She is the editor of Art and Humour published by the Whitechapel Gallery, London and MIT Press. She also wrote the screenplay for the feature film I Really Hate My Job , which will be on general release in 2007.