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My new friend @BarbieReports has been filling my timeline with complaints that I didn't put enough women artists into my Sunday Times poster. Mea culpa. It's a fair point. As partial recompense, here are 10 women artists who should have been there. Starting with the obvious...
Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010). There's no doubt that Bourgeois changed the game. Her edgy surrealist sculptures made a beeline for the nerve ends, played with your instincts, and turned being old into a good thing. Here's what happened when I met here.
Dorothea Tanning (1910-2012). Tanning was the best of the female surrealists. Much better than her overrated lover, Max Ernst. Her Tate show last year was a revelation. The early dream paintings were unsettling and psychologically charged. The late sculptures were brilliant.
Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750). You can always spot a Rachel Ruysch. No still-life painter of the Dutch Golden Age sounds a darker note than her. The early 'forest floor' pictures are especially doomy. Everything withering and dying. Things get brighter later on. But not much.
Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1755-1842). Although she's best known for her portraits of Marie Antointette - especially the casual one of the queen looking like a shepherdess -Vigee-Lebrun was also a pioneering self-portraitist: Cindy Sherman waiting to happen! Artist of many faces.
Katarzyna Kobro (1898-1951). Obviously I'm biased, but I adore and respect the Polish constructivism of Katarzyna Kobro. What's particularly impressive is that she was so hard core. No wavering. No softening. Just the unbreakable truth of a universal geometry. Dziękuję Katarzyno.
Paula Rego (b.1935). Britain's greatest living artist? Or Portugal's greatest living artist? Either way, Rego is the queen of an edgy and sucking magic realism. What kind of a mind comes up with the Dog Woman?! Heavens what a sure touch she has with those pastels of hers.
Yoko Ono (b. 1933). Yes, yes, I know Yoko Ono was included in my poster, but I work on the principle that you cannot have too much Yoko! What a courageous artist and magnificent human being. Love her edgy performances. Love her conceptual games. Love her simple truths.
Maria Lassnig (1919-2014). How did I miss out Lassnig in my poster?! Ridiculous! Few artists have genuinely stopped me in my tracks, but that's what happened when I first encountered Lassnig. Stop. Gawp. Adore. It's the directness that gets you. The weird colours. The bravery.
Gwen John (1876-1939). While she was alive, poor Gwen John had the misfortune to be outshone by her brother Augustus John and her lover Rodin. It's now clear she was better than both of them. Whenever I see her work I feel I can hear a clock ticking. Pale, faded, afternoon art.
Varvara Stepanova (1894-1958). Now you're talking. The brilliant Russian constructivist Varvara Stepanova designed some of the best posters of the early Soviet era. So exciting visually. She also did a great line in sportswear. I wish my team, Reading FC, had outfits like these!
