The Evolution of Victorian Women's Art Education, 1858–1900: Access and Legitimacy in Women's Periodicals

In 1858, the English Woman's Journal published an account of the second exhibition of the Society of Female Artists (founded in 1855). Significantly, this was the society's first exhibition in which works were "painted for the express purpose of appearing under the auspices of the new institution."¹ The anonymous writer emphasizes the importance of "watching the development of female talent as applied to artistic study" rather than making invidious comparisons between the society's works and those generated by the "perfected powers of academicians and associates of the other sex."² The inherent problem, as the writer points out, is the lack of artistic training available to female students. At this time, women were still debarred from enrolling at the Royal Academy Schools, and professional women artists were many years away from being elected associates or full members of the academy. A number of art schools in London (such as Henry Sass's Academy, Heatherley's School of Art, and the Female School of Art) had been accepting female students since the 1830s and '40s; however, by the late 1850s women had yet to be admitted to the Royal Academy Schools, the co-educational Slade School had yet to be founded, and women artists were still struggling to attain the same qualifications as men so that they could pursue their chosen profession. The English Woman's Journal concedes that women's paintings were accepted and sometimes even well hung at the Royal Academy exhibitions, yet often these pictures were "small and delicate" and therefore in danger of being overshadowed by the much larger works of most male artists in the same exhibitions.³ For this reason, the article argues that it makes sense to hold separate female exhibitions, at least for the time being.

The English Woman's Journal was among the first periodicals to report on the progress of women's art education in the mid-nineteenth century. The mainstream press also commented on, and generally approved of, developments in women's art education. For example, in the late 1880s, the male critics M. H. Spielmann and F. G. Stephens each produced books and articles describing women art students at the major art schools in London.⁴ However, women's periodicals were even more important in supporting the efforts of women artists—arguing for their legitimacy and promoting their access to equal education. This essay explores periodical accounts of the changes that took place in women's art education from the late 1850s to the end of the century. My analysis focuses on the English Woman's Journal but also includes discussion of the Englishwoman's Review, the Woman's Gazette, the Women's Penny Paper, and Woman's Life. Through this examination, I hope to trace the shift from the campaign to gain women art students the same educational opportunities as men to the accepted view that women had obtained that right and were now achieving—and occasionally earning—as much as men in both the decorative and the fine arts. Even with this presumed progress, the debate over whether women art students should be permitted to draw nude models continued well into the last decade of the nineteenth century and was still a largely unresolved dilemma in discussions of women's art education in periodicals of the 1890s.

At the halfway point of the century, the primary goal was for women to gain admission to the same art schools as men and to be able to exhibit their work without suffering from comparisons with the work of the mostly better-trained male artists. In covering the 1858 Society of Female Artists exhibition, the English Woman's Journal pointed out that the exhibition, held at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, afforded a special "esprit de corps" for women students who were at the time endeavoring to secure an art education.⁵ It also noted that various accomplished women artists, including the sculptor Susan Durant and the feminist painters Anna Mary Howitt and Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, had also sent in works.⁶ The...