The SNF-project Modern Painting and the Lesbian Gaze: Queer Women Artists in Europe, 1900 – 1950 examines queer women painters’ involvement in negotiations around pictorial meaning that unfolded in Europe in the first half of the twentieth century – a period marked by profound transformations both in terms of art and gender politics. While literary scholarship has long traced the histories of lesbian authors and communities, art history has lagged behind in addressing the significance of queer women’s artistic practices. When studying art from 1900 to 1950, feminist art history has largely overlooked non-heterosexual sexuality and desire, while queer art history has tended to prioritise the works of gay men. In response, this project proposes the notion of a ‘lesbian gaze’ as a methodological provocation to decentre the male and heterosexual gaze as dominant frameworks of interpretation for modern painting.

Throughout this project, the term woman is not treated as a fixed, biologically determined category, but in a way that is mindful of a spectrum of gender experiences, some of which may not have been publicly articulated and legible in the first half of the twentieth century. The umbrella term ‘queer women’ refers to people who transgressed heteronormative social conventions and lived – or contemplated – non-normative sexualities and gender identities in this historical context.

The project’s central objective is to develop a queer feminist art history of modern painting that places sexuality, gender and class at the core of its analysis. It pursues three methodological strands. First, it combines feminist and queer approaches in order to newly position women’s artistic practices within queer art history. Second, it adopts an intersectional framework that foregrounds the role of class for queer lives and for the conditions of artistic production, thematic concerns and the circulation of artworks. Particular attention will be given to genres deemed as ‘minor’ and to artworks commonly dismissed as ‘mediocre’. Third, the project grounds its approach in close art-historical analysis to demonstrate how queer women artists negotiated, subverted or reappropriated painterly conventions, and thereby contributes to a much-needed revision of the history of modern painting.

Project leader:
Prof. Dr. Charlotte Matter

Project members:
Antonia Kölbl, MA
Len Mettler, MA
Eli Ståhl, MA

Would you like to receive project updates? Please send an email to lesbiangaze-kunsthist@clutterunibas with the subject line «mailinglist», including your name and pronouns. We will then be happy to add you to our mailing list.