Everyone must have the Right to be Equally Bad

This one might be a bit ramble-y, so I apologise in advance.  It is the upshot of a conversation I had with the ever-patient Mr Walker about female artists and whether it is the pinnacle of equality to point out what awful people some of them were. 

Now, this touches on two previous posts - one is on the book Victorians Undone which I felt conflicted about, because it concentrated on Fanny's body and the faults therein. I feel that woman are picked on enough, thanks very much, and the last thing someone like Fanny needed was to have her physical flaws pointed out.  That feels a bit Daily Mail on the whole.  The second post is one of my most notorious as it talks about how much we should balance an artist's words or deeds against their art.  All of the artists I talk about in that post are male, and I don't reveal any great bombshells (unless you hadn't read that book about Eric Gill, in which case I'm very sorry) but it is a subject I return to again and again.  As I type this more Neil Gaiman allegations are coming out, so I won't be watching Coraline any time soon.  

Is there a tipping point when a person's words or deeds should cancel any great art they produce (when the art has no relation to their views/deeds, obviously)? And is that at all connected to their sex? Before I ramble more, let me introduce you to Anna Airy...

Artist Anna Airy (1882-1964) is undoubtedly an incredible artist. She had an astonishing career, was an absolute trailblazer in terms of how women were seen and spoken about in the art world and she was one of the first female war artists. There is this article about her by Alison Thomas which does a far better job than I could in telling her story and there is this piece about her war art, which is fascinating. What really tickled me when I was researching is how her husband, fellow artist Geoffrey Buckingham Pocock, is often referred to.  I rage against 'his wife, also an artist' but in the case of Poor Geoff, he was 'her husband, also an artist.' Come on now, male artists matter too! I found a delightful review of an exhibition in New Zealand of both Anna and Laura Knight's work, where it was noted that both women were married to artists.  However, as the article reported 'In both case, the genius is with the wife, rather than the husband.' Ouch.

The Garden Door (undated) Geoffrey Buckingham Pocock

And very lovely it is too Geoff, don't you worry. This one is by Anna...

An Aircraft Assembly Shop, Hendon (1918) Anna Airy

Yes, I can see what the newspaper meant, unfortunately, but that's the point, Anna was exceptional as an artist. I am in no mood to do a hatchet job on Miss Airy as there is much to admire about how she broke through the barriers to how women artists were regarded in the early twentieth century, however I found something that gave me pause.

Children Blackberrying (1940s) Anna Airy

I started reading what I thought was a fluff piece in the Daily Mirror from January 1921, as Anna had been a judge on the Mirror's beauty contest in 1919, a thought that immediately struck me as hilarious.  Can you imagine that today?  Is Tracey Emin available to judge Miss World? However, I continued reading...

She begins with the following story:

"The Norseman of old had a theory, carried into practice as I've been told, with regard to every child born to them. The father inspected the baby, and if the child were "bright-eyed" it was kept, but if not it was left to die of exposure."

And now time for the swimsuit round! Blimey, that was an interesting opening, but not seeing the red flags, I continued reading...

Mrs Monica Burnard (1916) Anna Airy 

She goes on to explain that the beauty contest was for children and babies, hence the anecdote about bumping off your baby if they aren't pretty enough, but it starts going wrong around this sentance...

"These bonny girls, all of British parents, are Britain at her best, and we may well be proud of them, for their beauty depends, not on languor, not on affectation, nor on artificialities, but on superb health and clean breeding."

When I read that bit out to the teenager in our house, she saw the turn coming from around 'British parents' and it got worse...

"Intermixture of races by marriage may and does sometimes produce a beauty, but as yet we are not, broadly speaking, a much intermixed race. 

Though mixed marriages are, I fear, on the increase, I question whether the children of such unions will retain the clean looking strength, freedom or agility of the well-bred English child..."

She goes on in a similar vein, but you get the gist. This is 1921, by the sound of it Anna hadn't met many people outside her own social circle despite her War Art, and so her comments come off as horrifically ignorant and ridiculous.  Am I surprised that the Daily Mirror merrily gives her a column to be racist in? Not sure, but a century later I'm aware that the newspapers use such euphemisms such as 'urban' and 'spicy' to be racists now, so not much changes. It's also not that I was surprised that artists I like have turned out to be racists because Rossetti was mocked by Whistler for backing the North in the American Civil War (who knew Rossetti would be the least problematic person in any room?)

The Montieth Family (1947) Anna Airy

It's because Anna Airy is a female artist who has the potential to be seen as one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century.  I've been at events where I've been asked, seriously asked, whether women artists aren't included in the history of art because they weren't as good as the men. I need artists like Anna to make it into the discussion to prove that women are equally as good (which is a ridiculous thing to have to prove, yet here we are) so I don't want to be the one who cancels her (as the youngsters say today).  

Hang on though, male artists of note could be truly appalling human beings too - Picasso, Augustus John, Paul Gauguin, Eric Gill, Degas - all terrible people arguably (and unarguably in some cases) but still seen as the best artists.  So is there a point where people can't accept you because of what you do or say?  This is definitely a conversation we have at home due to the author of a once beloved book line causing us to step away from their works. Looking at the list of male artists above, I'm not sure any gallery would have an Eric Gill exhibition these days, but the rest are likely to be London blockbusters without a thought if they were anti-semetic/wife beating/rape-y etc etc. Dear God, what is wrong with people?

Men in a Cafe (c.1930s) Anna Airy

I think my concern is that we don't need another excuse not to include women.  If Picasso is seen as a great artist despite his sins, then why can Anna and her weird baby-racism have her amazing art admired too?  Are we so simplistic that we can seperate the artist from the art? Well yes, and that is partly the fault of people like me who insist on finding the biography of people fascinating in the appreciation of their art. Isn't true equality treating Anna the same as we would treat Picasso? Is it right that we feel comfortable embracing the art of a terrible person?  What if this 1921 column reflects her views then but in time she realised she was an idiot and stopped being a racist? We have images she produced later that included people of colour, so could she have changed her mind.  Does that matter?  Is there room for redemption? 

On theBorderline (1921) Anna Airy

In the end, do we need to have this conversation? After all can't we just see an artist in the round, with warts and all? I think it is definitely easier to tackle this with dead artists, with all their sins revealed and taken in the same stride as their works.  With living artists/writers/actors, their misdeeds are still infinite and we don't know where they will go next so it is preferable to step off the fan-train as early as possible because no-one wants to be wearing the t-shirt when your hero says or does something truly appalling.  In the end, do we put too much trust in our fellow humans, especially those who have the opportunity and platform to say and do awful things.  

So, is true equality our ability to see a flawed artist, no matter their gender and weigh up their misdeeds against their body of work? I wait to see if we can...