Women’s History Month is an annual celebration and recognition of the women who have made history and the women who are currently making history. While all these women should be celebrated, VG&M is considering what this means for the women whose work are on display in the VG&M and whose presence was and is integral to the building. Look out for the purple female symbols around the gallery to lead you on an empowering art trail! You can read about our female artists and figures below.
Charlotte Hodes (b. 1959)
Charlotte Hodes is a leading contemporary artist. Her work is devoted to the female figure and questions representations of women as decorative features to reimagine the female figure for a contemporary audience. Hodes’ work brings light to often overlooked aspects of women’s labours and applies female associated activities such as embroidery and quilting to her empowering works, while also incorporating archives and collections such as The Wallace Collection, London to create compelling and rooted artwork. Hodes is now a Professor of Fine Art at London College of Fashion whilst continuing with her own artistic works. She has also participated in exhibitions at Design Museum London, Jerwood Space Gallery and the Venice Biennale, and displayed her collection The Errant Muse in collaboration with poet Deryn Rees Jones in VG&M between November 2019 and March 2020. Her piece of glass artwork Burnt Orange (2013) was bought from that exhibition by the University and is currently on display in VG&M.
Image : https://charlottehodes.com/
Julia Carter Preston (1926-2012)
Julia Carter Preston dedicated her practice to the revival of sgraffito, an ancient Chinese ceramics technique which inscribes into soft clay requiring discipline and precision. The piece is coated in a darker coloured clay to the layer beneath it, so when scratched with a tool, the lighter colour is revealed, forming a textured intricate piece. She personalised this technique by adding the lustre sheen and various colours, which she adopted from Islamic ceramics. Despite the fashion of the time for minimalistic designs, Carter Preston continued with her work and, despite successful selling shows in the region, asked only modest amounts for her work.
Carter Preston's lustreware bowl and fish vase (2001) were commissioned by the University and are now on show in Gallery 1 of the VG&M as part of a decorative art commission.
Image: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jan/23/julia-carter-preston
Dame Elisabeth Frink (1930-1993)
Elisabeth Frink was widely known for her focus on the natural world - especially birds, dogs, and male figures - and religious figures, presented in a stylised, surreal way. Her early work was influenced by Giacometti's sculptures, and by cubist and surrealist art which created, harsh and unusual silhouettes and paintings. As Frink's art developed, she moved away from the starkness of Giacometti's work but persisted with her singular style. Most of her work depicted a figure static or in motion cast in bronze, portraying themes of masculinity, aggression and the divine in human form. Frink was one of five influential women printed on a collection of stamps named Women of Achievement in 1996.
The University has two sculptures by Frink. Visitor favourite Gogglehead is displayed in the sculpture gallery, and Front Runner can be seen on campus. Her last public commission The Welcoming Christ, is at Liverpool Cathedral.
Image: https://pssauk.org/public-sculpture-of-britain/biography/frink-elisabeth/
Linda Stein (1943)
Linda Stein is an American artist whose work explores the convoluted limits of gender through fragmented, experimental sculptures and paintings, while playing with the presence and presentation of the gendered body. She was first inspired during a talk delivered by American Feminist writer and activist Betty Friedan. Stein was absorbed by the idea of this new liberation from a heavily gendered society and network in her hometown in the Bronx. Her work was further influenced through her experience of the 9/11 attack, leaving her without her home and significantly traumatised, which has been reflected through her artworks since.
In the Victoria Gallery, one of Stein's Knights of Protection sculptures is on display in the sculpture gallery. It was part of a larger gift of artworks by Linda Stein presented by Mr Raymond C. Learsy in 2022.
Image: https://cdn.naharnet.com/stories/en/138797-artist-creates-empowering-wearable-sculptures
Mitzi Solomon Cunliffe (1918-2006)
Cunliffe’s most notable art-work is one of the most recognised symbols of TV and film success in the UK; the BAFTA mask award. During her global education, studying in America, Paris and Sweden, she honed her craft and took interest in sculpting and architecture. After gaining some recognition for her sculptures in the 1940s, the artist relocated to Manchester where her husband worked.
During the 1950s and '60s, Cunliffe was commissioned to produce sculptures across the country. The University of Liverpool commissioned Loosestrife now on display in the sculpture gallery, and Quickening a public sculpture in the form of a hand holding a dove is located on campus outside the Rendall Building.
Image: Twitter
Students at University College Liverpool
The mid 1800s was home to first-wave feminism. Women were demanding equality and emancipation which inevitably led to a backlash from both men and women who still held the traditional values of the domesticated woman.
So, it is no surprise that the women in education who were working towards academic and financial independence received this backlash also, through violence in all forms. Despite this opposition, the women of the college persisted. We know that women in the college were awarded degrees from 1888 due to the recorded academic achievements of Elizabeth Beckett, who graduated with a Bachelor’s degree, and a Master’s degree.
In 1920, around 25% of higher education graduates were women. As of 2022, the amount of female graduates has increased by 43% and now stands at around 58%, with an average employment rate of around 87%. Without the perseverance of our female predecessors, we would not be where we are today.
Image: https://vgm.liverpool.ac.uk/blog/2021/the-new-woman-at-university-college-liverpool/
Eve Goldsmith Coxeter (b. 1928)
Coxeter has delved into many different media during her artistic career such as oil paintings, watercolour paintings, sculptures and even some prose and poetry. Her preferred medium is oil painting. She focuses on politically charged subjects, typically capturing a still, sometimes imaginary image such as her depiction of the Iraq War in an Impressionist style. These are currently on display in the British Red Cross Museum.
With her sculptures she strives to capture authenticity in expression and character while using a static medium. An example of this is Coxeter's bronze sculpture of Professor Herbert Fröhlich (1986), which is currently on display in the sculpture gallery.
Image: https://eve-goldsmith.squarespace.com/political-paintings
Anne Estelle Rice (1877-1959)
Rice began her artistic career in Philadelphia, moving here after being raised in Schuykill Valley, Pennsylvania. After training in and trying to make a living as a graphic artist, painter, designer and muralist, she moved onto illustrating. In the 19th Century this was one of few professions wherein a woman could gain their own financial freedom. After gaining distinction with her work for magazines such as Harper's Bazaar, she was commissioned in 1905 to illustrate the latest fashion in Paris. Once there, Rice turned back towards painting, working in the colourful Modernist styles of Post-Impressionism and Fauvism. She exhibited her work frequently, including at the annual Salon d'Automne between 1908-1913. By this time she had married an Englishman, and they settled in London.
In her later career she engaged with the theatre community, producing sets, costumes and paintings. Her painting Spring, Regents Park (1935) is displayed in Seeing Green on the Balcony Wall in the Victoria Gallery.
Halima Cassell (b. 1975)
Halima Cassell's artistic journey began at an early age and developed throughout her Bachelor's degree in 1997, and her Master's degree in 2002. Her work consists of carving heavily grogged clay, stone, wood and plaster to create strong and geometric, recurring patterns. She moved from Kashmir, Pakistan to Lancashire with her parents as a child, influencing her work. The repeating motifs are reminiscent of Islamic architecture and North African surface patterns; the collaboration of the multi-cultural modes carves out parts of her history and exemplifies Cassell's artistic engagement with her heritage and appreciation of other cultural art forms. Cassell aims to push the limitations of the materials that she works with creating dynamic tension through playing with light and shadow, in the deep indentations in her sculptures and lack of colour. Her work has been part of numerous public collections and exhibitions. Her public art, both in galleries and outdoors, can be seen in Blackburn, the Forest of Bowland, the Ribble Valley, Leicester, Nottingham and Liverpool.
The University currently has Cassell's Noir Rhythm (2013) on display in the sculpture gallery.
Image: https://www.materialsource.co.uk/meet-the-maker-sculptural-ceramicist-and-artist-halima-cassell/
Ellen Clacy (1853-1916)
Ellen Clacy, born onboard a ship from Australia to England, was best known as a watercolourist, depicting landscapes, rural life and historical images. Most of her exhibited work showed rural scenes due to her solo painting excursions to the countryside. Her painting Will Myers, Ratcatcher and Poacher, is a product of one of her excursions to northern England, where she painted a local carpenter. It was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1885. Clacy's work was exhibited a total of twenty-seven times in the Royal Academy between 1872 and 1900. Her work was also frequently exhibited in the Royal Watercolour Society and the Society for British Artists. Clacy's work also appeared in Liverpool Academy and Walker Art Gallery. Liverpool Academy displayed The Vagrant (exhibited in 1876) and The Wither (exhibited in 1890) while Walker Art Gallery displayed Flight (exhibited in 1880) and The Old Poacher, which was purchased in 1886 as a part of their permanent collection.
Clacy's oil painting Woman by the Fireside (1899) is on display in gallery 4.
Image: https://artuk.org/discover/artists/clacy-ellen-c-18531919
Marjorie Brooks (1904-1980)
London born Marjorie Brooks was a painter and decorative artist. Brooks has a storied career , with her achievements being marked with a Gold Medal, Bronze Medal and, Edward Stott Travelling Studentship (1927) from the Central School of Arts and Crafts and Royal Academy Schools for design, decoration and painting, and Prix de Rome scholarship. Due to her significant achievements, she became a regular exhibiter at the Royal Academy. She then went on to design costumes for various theatres, including the Liverpool Playhouse.
Brooks created this oil painting Portrait of Mrs Cecile Dorward , currently on display in the Gallery Corridor, which depicts the interior designer and occupational therapist Cecile Dorward. Dorward was known for her extraordinary, bohemian lifestyle as she travelled solo around the world at fifty-eight in a dormobile, concluding her trip aged eighty-four.
Image: Portrait of Mrs Cécile M. G. Dorward (1911–2004) | Art UK
Jasmir Creed
Jasmir Creed's professional artistic career began in 2015. Creed employs various compositional techniques to create bright, expressionistic paintings that reflect on People of Colour communities and her place as a South Asian British artist. Her work is influenced by historical and contemporary painters but also engages with the theories of Georg Hegel and Karl Marx to inform the alienation and cultural hybridity that she achieves with her unpredictable depictions of urban scenes. She is currently a practice-led researcher at Slade School of Fine Art. Her work has been exhibited nationally and globally.
Alongside Tony Phillips, Jasmir Creed's paintings feature in Indian Perspectives currently exhibited in galleries 6&7 until 26th April 2025. Indian Perspectives showcases over 100 pieces of work engaging with the British colonialisation of India and the experiences of Indian identity in Britain. Here, Creed explores her multi-cultural heritage through colourful oil paintings discussing her Anglo-Indian identity and how it exists in society
Image: https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2024/09/11/university-gallery-announces-indian-perspectives/
The Staff
Last but not least, the staff! A large chunk of the staff members of VG&M are women; these women are part of what makes the VG&M world go round! From curators, to volunteers, to admin, to kitchen staff, to the learning team, all these women contribute individually to the preservation of the art and history within this building and Liverpool. Without them, it would be one less organisation celebrating the artists and historical figures that are remembered in this building.
Image: https://vgm.liverpool.ac.uk/