Feminist Artists, Feminist Matrons

Almost from its inception, Nashim has developed a secondary mission. Under the guidance of co-author Judith Margolis, Nashim’s art editor, we initiated a series of features on the work of Jewish artists (not all of them women) focusing on feminist or gendered Jewish themes. Most of these features, and our cover illustrations, address the scholarly theme of the issue in which they appear—often from a distinctive angle. The idea is not merely to bring a dash of color to the ivory tower. On a deeper level, we believe that art and scholarship—two profound modes of inquiry into the world— should speak to each other, and that art has the potential to broaden and inform the scholarly perspective, to open up new ways of looking at things, which is the premise and goal of feminist inquiry.

In keeping with this general mission, we set out, for the purposes of the 2009 New Orleans conference on Jewish women’s philanthropy and of this issue of Nashim, to look at the relationships between feminist artists and their “matrons,” feminist women who support their work. In interviews with a few of the artists whose work has been featured in Nashim and with some of the matrons who have supported their work, we sought responses to these questions: Who supports feminist artists? Why do they consider this important? Where do they obtain their resources? And how is this support experienced at both ends?

Cover of Nashim, no. 10. Cover image: Ruth Ben-Dov, “Shema.” Oil on canvas, 19 ×15 cm (1997). Collection of Artspace Gallery, Jerusalem.

We define the term “matron” broadly, to include women who put resources behind artists and their work, including donors, collectors, commissioners, gallery owners, curators and institutional supporters. Perhaps more surprisingly, and somewhat more troublingly, a number of artists pointed out that the “matrons” often include the artists themselves. For example, Janet Shafner, after listing some of the major museums and exhibitions in which her work has been displayed, wrote: “You see the trend here— paintings in public collections, but requested donations, not purchases.”

Janet Shafner, “Lot’s Wife” (1996). Oil on canvas, 58″ ×50″.

Janet Shafner, “Azazel: The Scapegoat” (1994). Oil on canvas, 54″ ×48″.

As Judith Brodsky, a “matron” who is also an artist, put it, “An artist is an artist first and foremost; artists have to make art.” Consequently, Shafner notes, artists without strong national reputations

. . . are left with the dilemma of what to do with the inventory of work they have inevitably collected. So, they try to donate their work to institutions which will then make it available to the public. This is not an easy thing, since for many non-profit institutions, acquisitions create a demand on them for conservation, storage, archive, etc. which is ultimately a burden.

In a similar vein, artist Melissa Shiff wrote:

I am an artist who has made a significant body of work that is specifically dedicated to the investigation of Jewish cultural memory and the reinvention of Jewish ritual. . . . Despite showing my work at . . . prestigious institutions, I have never found a major patron/matron to fund these projects. . . . This state of affairs vexes me deeply, since it means that the artist has to function as her own benefactor in order to produce important and cutting-edge Jewish cultural work.

As you can see from the illustrations of these artists’ work, this isn’t just a problem of freeing up space in their garages and storerooms. As Brodsky put it, “How can this art change people’s perspective in generations to come, if it doesn’t get preserved?” To this end, Brodsky co-founded two institutes at Rutgers University, where she teaches—the Brodsky Institute and the Institute for Women and Art. Brodsky thus has not only used her institutional affiliation to get the institution to put its resources behind the promotion and preservation of women’s art; she has also devoted fundraising efforts and donated her own...