The Seamstresses (c.1914) by Laura Sylvia Gosse

We are proud that our painting “seamstresses” by Laura Sylvia Gosse has been loaned to the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown Massachusetts, USA to feature in an exhibition.

Seamstresses by Laura Sylvia Gosse

The major show is called “A Room of Her Own" Women Artists-Activists In Britain (1875-1945)

The oil painting has an interesting story to tell about women and art during the early part of c20. Painted as it was, in the same year that suffragette and art student Mary Richardson went into the National Gallery and slashed ‘The toilet of Venus’ (The Rokeby Venus) by Diago Valazequez with a meat cleaver. This protest was against the government for destroying Mrs Pankhurst the leading voice on women’s rights.

Our painting, is however a much more subtle attack on the place of women in a man’s world and was a humorous dig at the male artist Walter Sickert who was also Sylvia Gosse’s friend and painting master.

Maybe he didn’t get the joke but if you look closely at this work there is no doubt it has been deliberately painted in the style of Walter Sickert.

There is another joke in the overall composition, a charming domestic scene showing two women sewing provides clues in notes written on the back. They refer to the characters sewing including Christine Angus the 1st Mrs Sickert,  who was also a friend and an accomplished artist herself.

Here they are featured subversively doing what woman are supposed to do : 'sew' rather than paint, which was still predominately a male preserve.

“The Seamstresses” is twinned beautifully in the exhibition with an earlier work by Anna Alma-Tadema called “Girl in a Bonnet with her head on a Blue Pillow (Maisie)". Another woman painter in this female artist friendship circle relatively unknown living in the shadow of their more famous male counterparts.

Finally just to note that “Seamstresses” was donated to Rye Art Gallery by Barbara Baganal in 1971, in memory of her male friend Roger Senhouse and there lies another story of women art activists who ended up living in our unique town of Rye.

Dr Julian Day