Griselda Pollock & Gilane Tawadros
Ahead of our discussion on ‘Why Medium still Matters’ with Gilane Tawadros and Griselda Pollock, AWITA spotlights some of the achievements and work of two pioneering feminist art historians and writers.
Griselda Pollock
Gilane Tawadros
“How can we continue to raise complex, significant, and thought-provoking issues about art and diversity in a world where racism and patriarchy have not been eradicated and when the art world has become more financialized and driven by the market?”
- The Whitechapel Gallery, ‘Griselda Pollock: Big Ideas’
Griselda Pollock is a transdisciplinary cultural analyst of modernity and a dedicated feminist art historian. She has significantly influenced art history, challenged the male-dominated canon and highlighted significant female artists throughout history. The writer and professor Stephen Z Levine reviews Griselda Pollocks’ work Differencing the Canon in the Woman’s Art Journal, stating:
“It is precisely the scholarly and political labour of Nochlin, Pollock and many other colleagues during the last 30 years that has obviated the need for an essay entitled “Why have there been no great women art historians?”.
Alongside the major feminist art historian and writer of Why have there been no great women artists? Levine’s article showcases Pollocks’ great impact on feminist art criticism and the consciousness raised by both women towards the way history is analysed and recorded.
Differencing the Canon: Feminism and the Writing of Art's Histories, by Griselda Pollock. (Taylor & Francis, 2013)
Two of Pollocks’ significant works, Old Mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology from 1981 (co-authored with Roszika Parker) and Differencing the Canon: Feminism and the Writing of Art's Histories, are two radical feminist critiques of art historical practice that remain prominent today. Differencing the Canon engages its reader with questions including 'What is the Canon?', 'What difference can feminism make?' and 'Do we simply reject the all-male line-up and satisfy our need for ideal egos with an all-women litany of artistic heroines?'
Gilane Tawadros is a prominent art figure known for her tireless efforts in promoting diversity and inclusivity. Gilane, the Director of the Whitechapel Gallery, was formerly the Chief Executive of DACS, a not-for-profit visual artists’ rights management organization, and Co-Director of the Art360 Foundation, which she established in 2016 with Mark Waugh. She is a curator and writer and was the founding Director of the Institute of International Visual Arts (InIVA) in London. InIVA, over a decade, achieved an international reputation as a ground-breaking cultural agency at the leading edge of artistic and cultural debates nationally and internationally. She has worked with and advised several leading international cultural organisations, including Tate, Hayward Gallery, Camden Arts Centre, International Foundation Manifesta, Venice Biennial and Forum for African Arts. Tawadros has written extensively on contemporary art and curated several international exhibitions.
The Sphinx Contemplating Napoleon, Gilane Tawadros. 2021
Gilane’s anthology, The Sphinx Contemplating Napoleon: Global Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Difference (above), was published by Bloomsbury in 2021. This lively anthology of essays and writings on the politics of difference written over a two-decade period presents a potentially radical framework for understanding contemporary art by introducing the reader to the ideas, modes of analysis, and common experiences arising from a more interconnected world.
Both women have challenged traditional narratives through scholarship, curation, and advocacy, championed underrepresented artists, and fostered a more inclusive art community. As we celebrate their achievements, let us recognise the importance of their work and continue supporting and uplifting female artists' voices in pursuing a more diverse and equitable art world.
All Publications
Griselda Pollock
‘The Curse of Celebrity, Colonial Territory and the Flight to Freedom AMY! in Oliver Fuke (ed). The Films of Peter Wollen and Laura Mulvey: Scripts, Working Documents. Interpretation (London: BFI Bloomsbury). 2023.
Killing Men & Dying Women: Imagining Difference in 1950s New York Painting. (Manchester University Press) 2022.
Mary Cassatt. (Thames & Hudson World of Art) new edition in full colour. (1980) 2022.
Lessons in the Studio/Studio in the Seminar: Seventy Years of Fine Art at Leeds 1949-2019. The Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds (December-2019-April 2020) 2020.
Millet. London: Oresko Books, 1977.
Vincent van Gogh: Artist of his Time, (with Fred Orton) Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1978; US-edition: E. P. Dutton. Edited and re-published in: Orton & Pollock 1996.
"Les Données Bretonnantes: La Prairie de Représentation", (with Fred Orton) in: Art History III/3, 1980, pp. 314–344. Reprinted in: Orton & Pollock 1996.
"Artists mythologies and media genius, madness and art history", in Screen XXI/3, 1980.
Vincent van Gogh in zijn Hollandse jaren: Kijk op stad en land door Van Gogh en zijn tijdgenoten 1870–1890. Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, 1980/1981.
Old Mistresses; Women, Art and Ideology, London: Routledge & Kegan (Griselda Pollock with Rozsika Parker), 1981. Reissued by I.B. Tauris in 2013.
"Cloisonism?". (with Fred Orton), in: Art History V/3, 1982, pp. 341–348. Reprinted in: Orton & Pollock, 1996.
The Journals of Marie Bashkirtseff. London: Virago (newly introduced with Rozsika Parker), 1985.
Framing Feminism: Art & the Women’ s Movement 1970–85 (Griselda Pollock with Rozsika Parker), 1987.
Vision and Difference: [Femininity, Feminism, and Histories of Art], London: Routledge, and New York: Methuen, 1987.
"Inscriptions in the Feminine". In Catherine de Zegher (ed.), Inside the Visible. MIT, 1996. 67–87.
Agency and the Avant-Garde: Studies in Authorship and History by Way of Van Gogh, in Block 1989/15, pp. 5–15. Reprinted in: Orton & Pollock 1996.
"Oeuvres Autistes." In: Versus 3, 1994.
(Edited with Richard Kendall)Dealing with Degas: Representations of Women and the Politics of Vision. London: Pandora Books, 1992 (now Rivers Oram Press).
Avant-Garde Gambits: Gender and the Colour of Art History, London: Thames and Hudson, 1993.
"Trouble in the archives". Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. Duke University Press. 1992.
Generations and Geographies: Critical Theories and Critical Practices in Feminism and the Visual Arts, Routledge, 1996.
(with Fred Orton) Avant-Gardes and Partisans Reviewed, Manchester University Press, 1996.
The Ambivalence of Pleasure, Getty Art History Oral Documentation Project, interview by Richard Cándida Smith, Getty Research Institute, 1997.
Mary Cassatt Painter of Modern Women, London: Thames & Hudson: World of Art, 1998.
On not seeing Provence: Van Gogh and the landscape of consolation, (Edited with Richard Thomson),1888–1889.
Framing France: The representation of landscape in France, 1870–1914, Manchester University Press, 1998.
Aesthetics. Politics. Ethics Julia Kristeva 1966–96, Special Issue Guest Edited parallax, no. 8, 1998.
Differencing the Canon: Feminism and the Histories of Art, London: Routledge, 1999.
Looking Back to the Future: Essays by Griselda Pollock from the 1990s, New York: G&B New Arts, introduced by Penny Florence, 2000.
Work and the Image (Edited with Valerie Mainz), two vols. London: Ashgate Press, 2000.
Vision and Difference: Feminism, Femininity and the Histories of Art. Routledge Classics, 2003.
Psychoanalysis and the Image, Boston and Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.
A Very Long Engagement: Singularity and Difference in the Critical Writing on Eva Hesse in Griselda Pollock with Vanessa Corby (eds), Encountering Eva Hesse. London and Munich: Prestel, 2006.
Museums after Modernism. (Edited with Joyce Zemans), Boston: Blackwells, 2007.
Encounters in the Virtual Feminist Museum: Time, Space and the Archive. London: Routledge, 2007.
The Sacred and the Feminine. (Edited, with Victoria Turvey-Sauron). London: I.B. Tauris, 2008.
"Opened, Closed and Opening: Reflections on Feminist Pedagogy in a UK University". N.paradoxa. KT Press. 27: 20–28. July 2010.
Digital and Other Virtualities: Renegotiating the Image. Edited by Griselda Pollock and Antony Bryant, I.B. Tauris,
After-effects/After-images: Trauma and aesthetic transformation in the Virtual Feminist Museum, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013.
"Is feminism a trauma, a bad memory, or a virtual future?" Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. Duke University Press.
Charlotte Salomon and the Theatre of Memory. Yale University Press, 2018.
Bracha L Ettinger, Matrixial Subjectivity, Aesthetics and Ethics edited by Griselda Pollock. Palgrave MacMillan, 2020.
Gilane Tawadros
The Sphinx Contemplating Napoleon: Global Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Difference. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2021.
The Artist's Eye. Edited by Gilane Tawadros and Judy Adam. Art/Books Publishing Limited, 2018.
Sonia Boyce: Speaking in Tongues. Third Text Publications, 1997.
DACS Foundation Auction. Gilane Tawadros, Harry Adams, and Mark Waugh. DACS Foundation, 2015.
Shen Yuan. Gilane Tawadros and Shen Yuan. Iniva in collaboration with Arnolfini, Bristol, 2001.