May Morris at William Morris Gallery.

Great exhibition at the William Morris Gallery.  May Morris commenced in the family business, working to designs of her father, William Morris, then progressed to her own designs.  There was an exquisite stitched piece of a Gothic figure - typical of a WM design - which apparently was a technical demonstration piece, but May Morris rarely stitched this type of design from this point on.  She focussed on foliate border designs and flowers.  Her work varied from tiny, miniature, stitches on 6" x 3" panels, to big chunky stitches on commercial felt 15' x 15'.  She used satin, stem, long and short, and split stitch extensively - simple stitches - used skillfully and to best effect.  Lots of clever, directional line work.  She was unimpressed by fancy stitches.

May Morris was unimpressed with embroidery designs of black or dark blue on light ground.  She obviously liked colour work and was very skilled at colour blending.  She held interesting views on purple and yellow.  She advocated soft dusky purples with bright clear yellows, and was scathing about bright purples against buttery yellows.  I wonder whether she was reacting against the Victorian Perkins coal tar dyes which originally were a bright, artificial purple.  May Morris advocated good quality materials, specifically light fast dyes, and I wonder whether William Morris' colour dyes were as lightfast as artificial chemical dyes of the tie.

Vine, stitched wall hanging/quilt cover c1910

 May Morris was excluded from many Arts & Crafts societies because she was female, and was a founder member of a women's  exhibiting society.

Label - Why has a section been cut out?

And the table runner it was attached to.

Altercloth with gold work.

Amazing detail.  Goldwork and lustrous silks reflect the light very well.

There was also a hand embroidered cot quilt made by May Morris.  Apparently it was made in the year before she married.  She never had a child, and the marriage ended in divorce (unusual for the time).  It had various quotations around the edge, and lots of animals stitched on it.  I found this piece quite poignant.

Designed by May Morris, stitched by Jane Morris,
The Forest and the Homestead cot quilt
Courtesy of William Morris Gallery

It was a lovely day out.

London Artfair at Design Centre - Curating Gender

What a waste of time.  I expected a chaired discussion of the issues curators have, to fairly exhibit artwork by and about men and women, and the issues of men and women.  It turned into a moaning session about how hard it is to be a woman in the art world.

One speaker obviously knew many statistics about the differences between what women and men get paid, and the difficulties of being an architectural artist who happens to be female.  The next speaker was speaking English as a foreign language, so was speaking via a translator, and had done feminist artwork but did not appear to be talking about Curating Gender.  Some of the questions from the floor were just bleating about how hard it is to be a female artist (it's hard for all artists) and another was a young student who wanted to know how to make it big, quick.  There was comment about how women always get lower fees than men, and one of the men (a former music promoted, now art promoter) said "make better art" which went down like a lead balloon.  I would modify his comment to "make more commercial art".  If people want to make a profit at art, then the customer needs to be prepared to pay for it, and it needs to appeal to a wider, richer, market.  However, as I am making art to understand my world (rather than earn my living at it) then his comment about 'better' art is inapt.

But nothing about the issues curators have when taking gender into account.  £16 entry, and a lot of travelling to learn nothing.

Panel - Curating Gender

17/1/18 - Tutorial with Jill and Imogen

I'm feeling thoroughly confused.  My tutorial went well while I was up in Coventry but now I feel confused, unfocussed and aimless.

I started showing my 3 samplers - Mrs Konieczny, Self Portrait and Aunt Joan - to Jill and Imogen.  Jill was amazed at them - the difference between seeing something on screen, and in reality.  I agree with her, that it is very different to see the actual object, to seeing an image on a screen.  I'm always somewhat surprised when people really like them - so many people pass them by - so when someone understands how long they take to make, and the feeling and respect for the person that is imbued in the work, it is reassuring but also unusual.

I told them about how I had used Schwartz's Value Chart in the NPG.  I'd used it to make quick value judgements on imagery based on gut feel - which is how psychometric testing on self assessed personality questionnaires is conducted. You don't agonise about the rating, you just get on with it.  This was obviously not what they thought appropriate.  They felt I was using a tool out of context.  Which it is, but using a tool out of context can give insights not otherwise available.  If I wanted to analyse the values in paintings, they were talking about measuring the tonal value, size, space occupied by different people in the images, and creating, manipulating and analysing big data.  This is not what I want to do.  I don't have the skills, and I don't have that level of data rationality.

My notes of the meeting are not great.  Too much information was coming at me too fast.

I need to deliver 2 x 5,000 words.  Two chapters (of what?) (By September?)
One is an enhanced literature review.
The other is either 5,000 words of writing, or a piece of artwork.

At my Performance Review Panel in September(?) there will be an independent assessor (possibly Graham Charlton, painter or Lee ... artist, from Coventry)

Jill suggested that my reading/writing could focus on:

Context of stitch
Value of stitch
Purpose/value of decoration
Purpose/value of pattern - what happened with the colonial

She suggested I look at Michael Brennan Wood's work.  I loathe it.  Pointless depictions of flowers.
Imogen suggested I do some artist research - of which I have done a lot.  She suggested I categorise the work that I like and dislike to identify patterns and trends.  I know I like work with a strong narrative.  I'll do this.

Imogen also suggested I look at her book Contemporary Crafts and use the bibliography to direct my reading.  I need to identify the key dates from 1979 for what happened when.  Peter Dormer - The Culture of Craft.  Also Glenn Adamson.  Create a chart for key dates.  Don't divorce industrial from domestic (what industrial? what domestic?  How?).  Stay broad.  Look at men using textiles - I get hacked off with this.  I'm interested in how women are represented in museums, and the fact that very few textiles get shown in museums, but often when textiles are shown, it's men who are often showcased for their 'non-stereotypical' use of textiles, like Michael Brennan Wood and Richard McVetis.  What might be interesting is 'what' are the differences between men's and women's textile work and 'why' does men's work and women's work get their respective prominence?  Look at samplers directing what women were.

For PhD, research students are required to produce 25,000 words.  Text has to back up the work.

Female making in stitch.
Values of decorative (holds meaning culturally and personally eg in borders)
Cultural Capital
Economic Capital
Values ascribed to gender

I struggle with finding right search terms.  Often cannot get access at home.  Jill/Imogen said often you can only get access when on site.  So I need to spend more time in the library at Coventry.
Try searching under Decoration, female, gender.

Join British Library.  Closer to home and very helpful staff.

As a female visual arts practitioner, construct a narrative, using non-traditional means.

Create a funnel: Not sure whether I should start at the top or bottom?

  Why it is of value?
    Cultural Values
       Writing re value of stitch
           What is displayed?
             Me - Practice - lived experienced

Create a list of words for how I work.

I don't have the skills to do the research I am actually interested in  - How are the values of women portrayed in art exhibitions in museums?.  I'd be better off working in a team, where the leaders are experienced in the type of research being conducted, and I'm the worker doing the grunt of data collection, while I learn the skills required.  Maybe what Jill and Imogen are suggesting is taking a different route to the goal.

I feel I am getting further and further away from knowing what my question is.

Actions:

Get/read Contemporary Crafts - ordered 17/1.
Start reading from its bibliography
While waiting for book to arrive, keep working on Aunt Joan's sampler.  This needs to be finished so I can move on.
Read more of The Subversive Stitch.
21 Jan - Look at May Morris exhibition at William Morris Gallery
23-26 Jan - Contemporary Watercolours art class.  Start new body of work about public toilets for Liverpool St toilet attendants.
Library book search - Dormer/Adams-on
Conduct library word search for articles - textiles-narrative-women; gender-stitch-value; decoration-female-gender etc
Categorise my artist research folder to identify what is meaningful to me.
Create a chart for key dates in feminist art.
Join British Library
Create funnel of thought as above
Create list of words for how I work.

I'm still feeling confused but with a list of things to do, at least I'm no longer aimless!

Work in progress - Aunt Joan's Sampler

White border, hot border, purple border and line drawing of Sissinghurst

Purple border

White Border and a bit of pulled thread work

Purple border

Lettering and blackwork strip

Purple border and a bit of pulled work

White Border

And the script is nearly finished.

Imogen's talk - British Artists of the 1980s - Art, Money, and Radical Practice

Imogen gave a presentation on her research to date for her next book.  She has two options for the title:

Diverse Practice: British Art in the 1980s
British Artists of the 1980s: Art, Money and Radical Diversity.

I think the second is better because it tells the reader it is about the artists - the people behind the artwork - and includes Money, which was important to 1980s society.  However it does not include the word Sculpture - which is what I think the book is about.

Why:  Imogen wants to focus on the unknown names, the lesser known artists.  Those who are not in archives.  Or are still in boxes and not listed.  Some artists have disappeared, went off to do other things and were not collected.  There was much marginalisation of women and BAME.  Her book aims to focus on how these people got around these issues.  The French describe the 1980s as the Lost Decade.  So far, the 1980s has been written out of history.  Imogen aims to address this.

New British Sculpture became the promotional name at the time - patronage dependent.  (Does this indicate that private patronage supports white men?  Or is it that patronage supports 'people like me'? Which could be any type of person?). The Lissom Gallery in particular was a big supporter, plus major museums and national collections.  However, archives become fractured (how?) and the continuum is lost.  Thus, Imogen has been conducting semi-structured interviews - gaining trust - in order to access the artist's archive.

Difficult to find people - many are wary by bad experiences or designation.  Allow them to structure the interview.  How do they want to be represented?  Essential to gain trust.  This is a new style of research for Imogen so it is a learning experience for her.

Ailsa Wilding
Cathy de Monchaut - hand maker - the patina of the hand made.
Catherine Gili - loves her materials - steel - follows her own agenda - deeply impressive.  Does not work with a Gallery as she wants to work to her own path/inspiration.
Helen Chadwick - Mutability exhibition.  Used own body.

After the interview, Imogen sends the transcript for authorisation.  But she finds speech is fractured - ungramatically spoken.  So she has taken to stating there will be a 'light edit'.  As an experienced interviewer and transcriber, I think there are ways round this.  In the interview introduction, you say the purpose of the book/interview is to portray them in a positive light; that you will make grammatical corrections to the first transcript to make it readable; that the interviewee has the right to edit out chunks that go off on a tangent; that they have the right to hear the recording while editing so they can check for authenticity.

Money became more important from the late 80s.

Her book aims to be demonstrating rather than theorising.  Material and metaphor eg place and belonging.

Put interviews in PhD appendix - gives legal protection (against slander?  how/why?)

We had a quite a debate about how/what you write about people.  There was a PhD student who managed to get right up my nose.  Obviously very clever, and appeared to want to be an art critic.  He had been talking to a mature writer who had given him a serious warning to be careful what he wrote, as this mature writer was living in the garage of his children, because he had been sued (for slander?) and lost everything in damages.  But even so, this student was pontificating about how he wanted to be a critic  and ....  He kept talking in half sentences, about his right to write articles as he thought fit, resulting from interviews.  He was implying he was strongly critical to an artist's work, but did not actually say it, and also assuming the audience understood the point he was (not) making.  Came across as a right smart Alec.

It made me think of my Study Abroad landlady, Tangea Tansley, who was a university creative writing lecturer.  She told a story about being interviewed live on radio in Sydney.  The discussion before the broadcast was all very friendly and chummy, but once they went on air, the interviewer publicly threw some very hostile questions at her and was snide about her work. Tangea was immediately on the back foot, and felt publicly humiliated by the interviewer.  The outcome is that Tangea will never do another live interview on air.  It only takes one experience like this, for artists to become suspicious of interviewers' motivations.  Add into this mix, that the interviewers are highly trained, and the interviewees are not, and you have the situation where power is unequal in the relationship and trust is non-existent.

Just from the behaviour of the student in this presentation, I would not participate in an interview with him, about my work.  How easy to lose trust!

Refining my Question

How are the values of women portrayed in art exhibitions in museums?

3 Days at the NPG 20th Century Gallery.

I've had a very interesting 3 days at NPG, looking at the values inherent in the 20th Century Gallery.  It quite surprised me!  When I first went to the newly rehung gallery in November 2017, about 6 weeks ago, I was quite impressed. I thought it was an improvement on the last hanging.  Now I am not so sure.

I have gathered data about values I perceive (as a white, straight, middle aged, urban woman, previously working in manual industry, with a broad knowledge of the arts) in the images shown, and from the artwork statement alongside.  I gathered the data on Schwartz's Table of Basic Values, in a scattergram format.

Schwartz's Table of Basic Values

What I have found is a huge tendency for the values identified, to cluster on the left hand side of the table, whether the sitter is male or female.  I've not analysed the data yet, so I can't say whether there is a tendency for the gender of the artist to impact on this.

I noted a couple of anomolies in the artwork descriptions - for example, the terms Actress and Actor were used to describe female sitters.  Sometimes women were described by, and made significant, by the men they were associated with, but men were not made significant by their women!

I had a chat with a museum attendant, Ben.  (Young, white, male, fine art graduate).  He said the portrait of Emmeline Pankhurst had been moved the previous day, to be part of an exhibition about Votes for Women (opening 23 Jan - must attend).  I asked him about selection criteria for the new hanging.  He did not know.  I mentioned that Beatrix Potter had been removed, and Roald Dahl was newly hung.  I noted their similarities and differences - both children's authors, each with a significant other contribution to society (BP was a founder of National Trust, major landowner in the Lake District and  environmentalist; RD was a wartime RAF pilot).  Her image was soft focus and outdoor, made her look something like Mrs Tiggywinkle, and rather like the illustrations in her books.  His image was in harsh, bright colours, and in uniform, indoors.

I asked Ben about whether he thought any art media were gendered.  This puzzled him, but when I asked him whether he thought cigarette cards were gendered. (There was a selection of cigarette cards depicting WW1 Victoria Cross holders).  He said he had studied cigarette packaging as a student, and that women had always been used in artwork to promote sales.  He seemed to completely miss the point that cigarette sales in the early 20th C were targeted at men, and the cards were promoting the achievements of men, in this exhibition.  This exhibition also made the point that for women to be seen smoking in the early 20th C was seen to be very daring.  It is my opinion (not yet backed up by data) that cigarette cards are gendered male.  I suspect (but not yet backed up again) that the people who commissioned the cards, and the artists of the cards, were men.

Ben said the NPG was a conservative organisation that was unlikely to be innovative.  I found this quite astonishing.  I said they had had Grayson Perry's Who Am I? exhibition that had dramatically increased footfall, and that museums were striving to increase footfall.  The big museums were partly Government funded and employed policy makers. So therefore their policies should be moving away from the conservative end of the spectrum, towards the innovative.  I think I scared him!!

OK.  Now to turn the raw data into some tables and scattergrams.  The hard work begins.

20th Century Gallery at NPG

I've decided to analyse the newly rehung 20th Century Gallery at NPG.  Yesterday I looked at the chronologically last section of this gallery - World War II and Post War Renewal:  1939-1990.  I chose this section as I did not want to be thinking about how many of the 121 images were left during my data collection!

I was gathering data about what values could be attributed to the sitter, and plotting these on Schwartz's Table of Basic Values.  My categorisation of values evident has been based on gut feel - as is advised in the workplace when conducting Personality Questionnaires.   I've made my decisions based on what is in the portrait, what's on the artist statement and what my general knowledge of the individual tells me.

Of the 121 artworks in the exhibition, only 40 relate to the last 50 years.  33% of images, for 50% of chronology.  I've not analysed it yet, but the values seem to be primarily about achievement, power and hedonism.  Minimal evidence of the other values on the scale.

John Berger - Ways of Seeing

John Berger wrote Ways of Seeing in 1972, and is still quoted nearly 50 years later.  I've meant to read it for several years ... but never got round to it ... until I saw a copy of it in Cardiff Museum and Art Gallery.

'The photographer's way of seeing is reflecting in his choice of subject.  The painter's way of seeing is reconstituted by the marks he makes on the canvas or paper.' p10

'When an image is presented as a work of art, ... it is affected by .. assumptions about art ... : Beauty, truth, genius, civilisation, form, status, taste etc'.

'The past is not for living in; it is a well of conclusions from which we d raw in order to act.'

'The art of the past is being mystified because a privilege minority is striving to invent a history which can retrospectively justify the role of the ruling classes'.  (What a stonking quote!!) p11

He is quite scathing about monetary values of artwork and the consequences of easy reproducibility.  He talks about Leonardo's cartoon of The Virgin and Child with St Anne and John the Baptist, only known to scholars until an American wanted to buy it for £2.3m (prior to 1972!).

'Now it hangs in a room by itself ... behind bulletproof glass.  ... It has become impressive, mysterious, because of its market value.'

'The bogus religiosity ... is ultimately dependent upon their market value, has become the substitute for what paintings lost when the camera made them reproducible.  Its function is nostalgic.  ... It is the final, empty claim for the continuing values of an oligarchic, undemocratic culture.  If the image is no longer unique and exclusive, the art object, the thing, must be made mysteriously so.'p23

'Reproduction [makes] it possible, even inevitable, than an image will be used for many different purposes'.   Cropping out sections changes the narrative, and adding words and captions alters it as well.  p27

'The meaning of an image is changed according to what one sees immediately beside it or what comes immediately after it.  ....  Art, with its unique undiminished authority, justifies most other forms of authority, that art makes inequality seem noble and hierarchies seem thrilling.  For example, ... Cultural Heritage exploits the authority of art to glorify the present social system and its priorities' p29.

Chapter 3

'Men survey women before treating them.  .... How a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated.  .... That part of a woman's self which is the surveyor treats the part which is the surveyed so as to demonstrate to others how her whole self would like to be treated.  ... This exemplary treatment of herself by herself constitutes her presence.  [This] presence regulates what is and is not "permissible" within her presence.  Every one of her actions - whatever its direct purpose or motivation - is also read as in indication of how she would like to be treated.' p46

'Men act and women appear.  Men look at women.  Women watch themselves being looked at.  This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves.  The surveyor of woman in herself is male:  the surveyed female.  Thus she turns herself into an object ...  an object of vision: a sight.' p47

In European oil painting, women are a recurring subject.  Adam and Eve are the first naked subjects.  'Nakedness was created in the mind of the beholder. ... The woman is blamed and is punished by being made subservient to the man ... the man becomes the agent of God.  The single moment depicted became the moment of shame ... their shame is not so much in relation to one another, as to the spectator.  ... There remains the implication that the subject (a woman) is aware of being seen by a spectator.  She is not naked as she is;  She is naked as the spectator sees her.' p49

' The mirror was often used as a symbol of the vanity of woman.  The moralising, however, was mostly hypocritical.  You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure.  The real function of the mirror ... was to make the woman connive in treating herself as, first and foremost, a sight.'

Venus and Cupid (Nell Gwynn naked, commissioned by Charles II) ... 'shows her passively looking at the spectator staring at her naked.  ... The painting, when the King shows it to others, demonstrated this submission and his guests envied him'.

'The nude relates to lived sexuality. ... To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognised for oneself. ... Nakedness reveals itself.  Nudity is placed on display. ... In the average European oil painting of the nude, the principal protagonist is never painted.  He is the spectator in front of the picture and he is presumed to be a man.  p54

'Women are there to feed an appetite, not to have any of their own.' p55

'Women are depicted in a quite different way from men - not because the feminine is different from the masculine - but because the 'ideal' spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him'. p64

Chapter 5

'The art of any period tends to serve the ideological interests of the ruling class. ' p86

'The average work ... was a work produced more or less cynically: that is to say the values it was nominally expressing were less meaningful to the painter than the finishing of the commission or the selling of his product.'

'Oil painting ... defines the real as that which you can put your hands on.  ... It can suggest objects possessing colour, texture, and temperature, filling a space ... filling the entire world.'  The Ambassadors by Holbein ... it is ...the stuff, by which the men are surrounded and clothed which dominate the picture'.

'Oil painting celebrated a new kind of wealth  ... had to be able to demonstrate the desirability of what money could buy.  And the visual desirability of what can be bought lies in its tangibility, in how it will reward the touch, the hand of the owner.' p90

'Oil paintings were ... simple demonstrations of what gold or money could buy.  Merchandise became the actual subject matter of works of art.  (Dutch still life) Here the edible is made visible. ... It confirms the owner's wealth and habitual style of living.  Paintings of animals ... livestock whose pedigree is emphasised as a proof of their value and whose pedigree emphasises the social status of their owners. Paintings of buildings ... as a feature of landed property.'    p100

The highest category ... was the history or mythological picture ... yet their prestige and their emptiness were directly connected.  ... A certain moral value was ascribed to the study of the classics.  ... Classic texts... supplied the higher strata of the ruling class with a system of references for the forms of their own idealised behaviour. ...  The heightened moments of life - to be found in heroic action, the dignified exercise of power, passion, courageous death, the noble pursuit of pleasure...  should be seen to be lived.  .... These pictures were to embellish such experience as they already possessed. ... The idealised appearances he found ... were a support, to his own view of himself ... the guise of his own ... nobility. p101

'The genre picture - the picture of low life - was thought of as the opposite of the mythological picture .  It was vulgar instead of noble.  [It showed] that virtue in this world was rewarded by social and financial success.  The illusion of substantiality lent plausibility to a sentimental lie: ... that it was the honest and hard-working who prospered and that the good-for-nothings deservedly had nothing.' p103

'The painted poor smile as they offer what they have for sale.  They smile at the better-off - to ingratiate themselves but also at the prospect of a sale or a job.  Such pictures assert two things : that the poor are happy, and that the better-off are a source of hope for the world.' p104

[European oil painting is] accused of being obsessed by property.  The truth is the other way round.  It is the society and culture in question which is so obsessed.  p109.  ... The painting as a whole remains an advertisement for the sitter's good fortune, prestige and wealth.' p111

Evolving my idea

More thoughts from today's bike ride - 25 miles on New Year's Day - a good start to the New Year.

I was thinking about whether Wightwick Manor would work with a student, to create an exhibition at their location - would they take a punt on working with a minimally experienced student? I'm not at all sure about this.  But the more I think about it, the more I think this might be an idea with legs.  And if Wightwick Manor did not want to run with it, maybe I could run it as an exhibition at Coventry University.  In their publicity material, Coventry states it will use its contacts to assist with venues for exhibition of student work.  I am assuming an exhibition of artists' work could be part of a submission for a Masters.

Vanda and I had a discussion about what one's practice is, a few months ago.  Vanda had spent a lot of time thinking about her practice, and had concluded she did not want make work for sale (then it needs to be commercially viable, and usually uncontroversial), nor to exhibit her work in solo shows, or self-organised group shows.  For her, a large part of the validation of her work, was for it to be exhibited in shows where work was selected by independent organisers.  I agree with this.  My work is an expression of my thought - which is positioned to how far I have thought, at the stage at which I make it.  Then if it fits an exhibitor's agenda, all well and good.  If it is good enough, it will be selected .... if it's not, it won't!

A call for entries for artwork about Valuing Women would draw in many different people's perspective on what individuals in British contemporary society think women should be valued for.  So if such an exhibition could be organised, in a timely manner for the end of my Masters, it would create a body of work that might be worth analysis subsequent to the finishing of my current studies!  It might provide a database of contemporary artists' interpretation of Values about women.  And if the artists were from diverse backgrounds (ie age, orientation, ethnicity etc) it would address my concerns about my personal framing impacting significantly on the values that are identified.

Wightwick Manor - Idea for an Exhibition

My trip to Wightwick Manor has inspired an idea for an exhibition.  They are soon to open an exhibition about Women and Female Suffrage.  But what next?

What about an exhibition of work by and/or about women of the last 100 years who have contributed to their community in some way

- Little known or under-recognised
- Significant to the wider community or their immediate nearest and dearest
- Who have used their money, intellect, or time for the benefit of others
- Whose art media associated with women

I'd need to work this up a bit more, but I'm sure I could write a call for entries that would fit the National Trust policies, site and location.  If it was promoted with local universities, places of worship and political organisations, I'm sure a huge diversity of artwork would be entered, celebrating their women!

Wightwick Manor, Wolverhampton, National Trust.

This was the most interesting National Trust property that I have ever been to!  It is an Arts & Crafts house, built by a Victorian paint manufacturer, and inherited by his son, Geoffrey Mander.  (Interestingly Mander senior died at 47, from an abcess on his liver, that spread to his lung - which makes me wonder whether it was caused by the toxins in Victorian paint, that his liver was unable to deal with?).

Geoffrey Mander was a Liberal politician who was very forward thinking in his views.  He was the first company boss to introduce the 40 hour week for his employees (50-60 was the norm), introduced annual leave, worked to achieve equal rights for workers (not sure how).  He was a strong supporter of female suffrage and, according to Hansard - the record of speakers at the Houses of Parliament - spoke 80 times about female equality.

Mander and his wife donated the house and contents to the National Trust in 1937 - for the benefit of the public to see Arts & Crafts.  The house is absolutely stuffed with Arts & Crafts objects and decoration. They had opened the house prior to this, while they still lived in it, for the public to see the truly astonishing interior.  For the next 20 years they continued to collect Pre-Raphaelite Art - when it was out of vogue - so they acquired a considerable collection comparatively cheaply, including many of women. The female artists in the collection are:

Evelyn de Morgan, Persephone and Hesperus, 1881
Courtesy of Wightwick Manor

Marie Spartalli-Stillman
Evelyn de Morgan (2nd wave Pre-Raphaelite, gay?)
May Morris (gay?)
Lizzie Siddle
Lucy Maddox Brown
Emma Sandys
Gertrudy Spencer Stanhope
Eleanor Brayholt.

Many of the people represented are of relatively unknown people -many women - who were socialists and who used their money for the benefit of others.  Often supported war victims; children; the widowed.

Wightwick Manor has a major exhibition planned for 2018, about Women and Suffrage, using their own collection.

This is worth going back to take a second look.