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Male stacks, Female gaps

  • Catherine Wynne-Paton
  • Dec 29, 2025
  • 3 min read

Exploring Project Progress and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham at Abergavenny Library


Photograph of six women around a table, one standing towards the back and the rest seated. There are open doors at the back of the room, one with a staircase going up. All but two of the women are looking at the camera. They are all white, from left to right there is a lady wearing black clothes with a bright pink scarf, grey bobbed hair and glasses, the next has a grey patterned top and blonde hair, the next has short blonde-grey hair and a deep red top, the woman standing has light red hair, glasses, is wearing a black pinafore dress and blue and green shirt, the next is a young woman with blue glasses and long brown hair with a black and white fair isle jumper and a pencil in her hand and the woman closest to us has blonde/brown hair, glasses and a multi-coloured short sleeved jumper of yellow, pink, brown and green. They are around a large rectangular white table, which is four table pushed together and there are colour photos, coffee cups, keys and orange and bright green painted squares of cardboard on the table. In the background there is a tv on a stand that is off and wooden and brass memorial plaques.
Talk on Wilhelmina Barns-Graham at Abergavenny Library

This month we had a last minute room change at the library and so we were in the Mayor's Parlour instead.  Great space, though I am looking forward to January when we’ll gather back on the Mezzanine.  What I particularly like about the mezzanine is its openness and how library users can stumble upon the sessions and listen in if they want.  


We now have colour posters up for the sessions in the library and around town and I am delighted by the enthusiastic responses finding their way to my inbox.  


In preparation for November's session I spent time in the library double-checking my artist book count for Abergavenny and found an extra twelve books on individual artists in the junior section, though there were none on female artists.  With this list of books I created a visual representation of the stock in orange and green card squares for each book.  Green for books on artist-women and orange for artist-men.  I arranged it in a grid and it very nicely set the scene to demonstrate a set up Barns-Graham used in her Squares series of paintings where she arranged cards in a grid, used her foot to disrupt them and then used the resulting arrangement as inspiration for paintings.  


Painted cardboard squares on a mid grey carpet. The squares are arranged in a grid formation, with many more orange squares than bright green ones.
Close up view of painted cardboard squares on a mid grey carpet. The squares are arranged in a grid formation, with many more orange squares than bright green ones.
Coaster sized squares to represent each book on an individual artist at Abergavenny Library

During my illustrated talk on Wilhelmina Barns-Graham I had comments and questions -


Liz -


IF YOU CAN’T SEE IT

YOU CAN’T BE IT

Ed -

Could you use the information you are collecting as a loose proxy (or commentary) to the wider society of the time or period. 


By having information about books in libraries from non-UK countries - is there such a disparity globally or just in Western states such as UK and America or e.g. in Italy during their times where they were showing a more balanced equality.  


Of course it could also be a little bit of the “vegetables in the supermarket” problem - people just pick up what they know and until they’re educated on what is new, they keep with what they already recognise.  


How many books about women artists are there? 


Lots to consider!  I think the range of artist monographs in UK public libraries reflects the tastes and aspirations of the people choosing the books and what type of art and artists are accepted and popular in the period they worked in.  The artists we can trace now from past eras could be a commentary on the society of the era.  I believe the disparity in books in libraries is probably global.  In Italy during the Baroque period there were prominent female artists such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Sofinisba Anguissola and Lavinia Fontana, but proportionally there were nowhere near 50:50 female to male professional artists.  


I think what we have now is a “vegetables in the supermarket” problem - that people  pick up what they know until they know about what else is available by venturing further - perhaps by sourcing vegetables from other places, I would say also by growing your own, but that’s the name of a friends project ‘grow you own artist’! 


There were more questions that I can’t remember because I was answering them!  I would love a notetaker!


I’m shaping the next 6 talks and trying to choose six of the following artists due to the quality of their work and that they cover a wide range of media: Ana Mendieta, Rosa Bonheur, Käthe Kollwitz, Niki de Saint Phalle, Faith Ringgold, Lee Miller, Linder and Hannah Höch.


I have chosen the first collage artist to talk about in January, Hannah Höch.  Do join us on the library Mezzanine on Saturday January 24th 11am until noon.



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