SINCE NOVEMBER 20th OF 2023

TO MARCH 31th OF 2024

As when making a garment on the bias, i.e. based on cutting

the fabric diagonally with respect to the thread, this exhibition

proposes to weave a counter-warp story to shed light on the artistic production of women in Spain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By recovering and cataloguing pieces and interpreting them from new perspectives, this exhibition articulates other ways of understanding the paradigms of modernity and the avant-garde,

until now restricted to practices that have left out an essential part

of the artisticactivity carried out by women.

Through six thematic areas, we will discover how the arts linked to adornment, decoration andintimate space reflected the social and cultural changes that allowed a fundamental advance in the situation of women. Between the domestic and

the public sphere, their practices encompassed areas such as interior design, fashion, stage design, illustration, ceramics and bookbinding. Despite the invisibility suffered in historiography, which considered these manifestations to be "minor arts", largely because they were associated with the feminine, this exhibition delves into a fascinating creative panorama of the turn of the century in which women claimed an art on their own terms that deserves to be recognised.

At a time during the industrial revolution, when foreign movements such as Arts & Crafts and the Bauhaus were calling for the elimination of hierarchies and the democratisation of design, important voices in Spanish culture also promoted the rescue of traditional knowledge and the promotion of applied arts. Among them were numerous artists who progressively increased their presence in educational institutions, professional spaces and various exhibitions. Some of their landmarks include their work at the National Museum of Industrial Arts from 1912 —later renamed the National Museum of Decorative Arts— and their participation in the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris in 1925. This is also confirmed by his extensive records at the Escuela Especial de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado (School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving) and his applications for grants from the Junta para Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas (Board for the Extension of Studies and Scientific Research).

The growing independence of women was translated into the configuration of their own workshops, institutions and organisations, where strong networks were built that were fundamental to understanding the advance of their rights and the opening of spaces in Spanish society at the time. The stage - a space also susceptible to a certain subversion for many women - welcomed numerous proposals from dancers and actresses, while other anonymous workers made costumes and scenery in the theatrical workshops.

Women artists in Spain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries developed the decorative arts of the textile field extensively, a logical dedication given the central role that needlework played in women's education. Although, paradoxically, within the professional sphere, many men headed fashion houses and designed costumes for dance, film and theatre, many women creators managed to establish their own brands. Among them, several foreign designers imported their garments or settled in Spanish cities, where they achieved significant success and helped revolutionise fashion and decoration with modern, avant-garde motifs.

Lace and embroidery continued to be associated with women's work in the home, while prominent figures promoted the preservation and transmission of these legacies through workshops and exhibitions. Innovative techniques such as batik

—a type of silk painting of Asian origin— were incorporated into the modernist and art deco trends of re-reading orientalism. At the same time, traditional textile forms and popular costumes coexisted with the proliferation of new garments, fashions and accessories that responded to the habits of modern women.

The book arts were a major focus of interest for Spanish artists in the first decades of the twentieth century. Publication illustration and bookbinding

were two professional fields in great demand. The proliferation of the illustrated press, which also included titles especially addressed to the female public, and

of publishers of children's books and stories, favoured the work of women artists in a wide range of aesthetic fields, from symbolism and modernism to more radical visions such as ultraism or constructive tendencies.

The iconography transmitted through these prints and engravings also

reflects the self-representation of the artists. These images were complemented by scenes of care and the demands of modern women. Gradually, they were seen in business management, driving cars or playing sport. In the end, it was a question of demanding equal access to the public sphere.

The performing arts represented a fundamental space for the work, experimentation and subversion of women artists at the turn of the century. Many of them managed to find in this sphere a refuge from

which to question and transgress the gender identity imposed by society.

On stage, choreographers, composers, actresses and other performers foundfreedom, acting power and independence. Behind the scenes,

set designers, costume designers and tailors applied their creativity to stage the materialisation of these artistic synergies. If the former had to deal with a social consideration in constant moral questioning, the latter were often submerged in anonymity or lack of recognition. Nevertheless, the value of their contributions is unquestionable.

The fact that the domestic domain was the traditional and majority destination for women led them to devote a great deal of attention to intervening and adapting it to their taste. Gradually, they also started

to decorate new interior spaces, such as the Lyceum Club Femenino

or some Paradores de Turismo. However, during this period women could not yet sign architectural designs on their own —it was not until June 1936 that Matilde Ucelay qualified as an architect— and so they collaborated with a number of qualified colleagues.

This close relationship with nature and the form of everyday objects, furniture and ornament reveals an attitude common to many artists

who reflect on materiality and the "soul of dead things", as Victorina Durán perceived among their belongings. Lamps, wardrobes, screens and chairs, inherited from their families or intervened by them, invaded their intimate spaces and projected the inner life and personality of these artists.

The artists' dedication to large-scale landscape and open space painting allowed nature to penetrate the interior and be integrated into the decoration. At the same time, the garden acted as an intermediate place between the private context and public life,

a domesticated and friendly natural environment for the enjoyment of which it is possible to find the conception of benches

and fountains signed by the artists.

In these decades of fundamental transition towards the conquest of rights for women, the step of the woman who looks from inside the home through the window to go out into the public space constitutes the materialisation of a metaphor. Ultimately, beyond the horizon, other women creators imagined and designed a fairer world outside, the one we still hope for today

in terms of equality.