Recovering the voices of woman painters in the north of Ireland (1957-1969)

The proposed research topic of this PHD will be to assess the overlooked visual histories of women painters in the North of Ireland from 1957 (when the Ulster Society of Women Artists was founded) to 1969 (the death of Alice Berger Hammerschlag). It will focus and place a number of women painters that had a huge impact on the artistic practice of the country, though have not been recorded or vigorously researched in comparison to their male counterparts. These women shaped the social and cultural identity of NI in the years following partition and preceding the conflict; therefore it is important to recover their voices.

Within the project there will be two case studies. The first will research and assess the work of Alice Berger Hammerschlag who was central to the visual culture of Belfast in the fifties and sixties. She taught, was involved in the Lyric Theatre, had a close relationship with Ulster Museum art curator Anne Crookshank and is credited with exposing Belfast audiences to international modern art through her gallery - The New Gallery. The Ulster Museum holds thirty-three works by her and purchased through her gallery. She was also collected by the Centre of the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA) which became the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Assessing these objects and compiling her biography will shed light on her work and the attitude to visual culture in the country at that time.

The second study will assess how women painters have often used a collaborative approach in order to secure their place professionally. Looking at the work of Olive Henry and Gladys MacCabe and their establishment of the Ulster Society of Women artists. It will analyse their work as individual painters, holdings in archives in relation to them, its members and its activity between 1957-1969.

Taking the Ulster Museum fine art collection and archive as the primary source, this research will be archive led with a practice based strand (exhibition curation). The...