At first, this imbalance might be attributed to the dominance of male artists. Upon closer inspection, however, the gender proportions of artists appear relatively balanced. Clearly, representation cannot be measured solely by counting the gender of the artist.
...this imbalance reflects historically entrenched barriers to training, commissions and professional recognition...
Instead, this imbalance reflects historically entrenched barriers to training, commissions and professional recognition which restricted women's participation in the art world. Even those who succeeded often faced pressure to produce work that conformed to expectations of female submissiveness. Women’s exclusion therefore extends beyond the profession itself to the images deemed worthy of public display.
Evidence of this can be seen in the Laing. We see Mabel Greenberg's 'Helen' in the same exhibition as Henry Marvell Carr's 'Sister Edna Morris', two visually similar works despite being produced by artists of different genders.
They both depict women gazing beyond the frame, producing a passive (female) subject who avoids contact and, therefore, any assertiveness. In comparison, Sir Edwin Landseer's 'The Otter Speared', displayed on the opposite wall, depicts the heroic male dominating his physical and natural surroundings.
Women are repeatedly represented through a narrow visual vocabulary...
Together, these historical works, spanning the 1850s-1950s, reflect the dominating, patriarchal rhetoric of men as leaders and women as followers. Women are repeatedly represented through a narrow visual vocabulary: as subjects to be looked at rather than people who act, create, lead, fight, desire, work and shape history. The Laing made me realise that a gallery can display female artists and still communicate a profoundly gendered understanding of who acts, who creates, who is remembered and who is looked at.
Traditional portraits should remain on display, but their limitations must be acknowledged.
Ultimately, I contend that the Laing Art Gallery raises important questions about how historical biases should be contextualised for modern audiences. Traditional portraits should remain on display, but their limitations must be acknowledged. From a historical perspective, the younger generation must be aware of how much potential they have in shaping their own futures, and these portraits can help make the constraints imposed by historical gender conventions visible.
Women should not have to be depicted as exceptional in order to escape objectification. She can be beautiful, she can be powerful, she can be vulnerable, fierce, scared, sexual or ordinary. The issue arises when one representation becomes dominant.
Therefore, representation cannot be improved simply by increasing the number of female artists or subjects. Instead, galleries must challenge the assumption that traditional images represent the entirety of female experience, making space for more diverse expressions of identity, agency and possibility.