top of page
Search

Who’s Missing on the Art Shelf?

  • Catherine Wynne-Paton
  • Oct 4
  • 2 min read

Fixing the Balance in Public Libraries

ree


First talk in series


A certain calm has descended upon me since last Saturday as I began the journey that lies ahead with the series of talks at Abergavenny Library about my project Male stacks, Female gaps. Artist monographs in public libraries.


In this first talk I introduced the pilot  project at Abergavenny Library,, to equalise the number of books on artist-women and artist-men, as well as the longer term aim to do this around the UK.


I gave an illustrated talk on the career and work of Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, inviting questions throughout and gathering the names of artists attendees would like to see on the library shelves. See my short survey


Research


I have spot-checked a sprinkling of library stocks around the UK and am so far seeing this same picture of a disproportionate number of books about artist-males compared to artist-females.  It is important to me to know the position we are starting from and find out the stock of books on individual artists around the UK, so I can compare now to ten years’ time, or however long this project takes!  So I am getting in touch with university research departments that, until recently, I didn’t even know existed, such as UCL’s Centre for Publishing, Readings Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing and courses such as Digital Humanities.  I am hoping to find someone researching Public Library stocks on artist monographs, you never know!  If you have any ideas on research departments or researchers who may have an interest in this, please get in touch!


Next talk


Talks at Abergavenny Library on the Mezzanine are on the 4th Saturday of each month, apart from December as the library won't be open on the 27th!  The next talk is on 25th October at 11am and I’ll give an introduction with the latest updates on the project, then give an illustrated talk on sculptor Elizabeth Frink.  I have recently seen her work in an exhibition that has just closed at Salisbury Museum Elisabeth Frink: A View from Within



Comments

bottom of page