‘The Finkbeiner Test’, developed by journalists Christie Aschwanden and Ann Finkbeiner, is a seven-part checklist used to avoid superfluous gender discussion in academic articles. In reflecting upon using the test in her writing, Finkbeiner noted: “The fact that she’s the first woman to do that [win a particular award] says a lot more about the prize-giving committee than it does about her.” This quote came to mind immediately when I came across a piece from the Whitney Museum of American Art archive online, Let’s Toast Irish Art, Lads (Pssst: Not So Fast, Lasses) from the Guerrilla Girls Portfolio. The piece, a print done in 2010, pointed out how male-dominated the Irish art scene was at the time. 

The Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous, anarchist, feminist art collective founded in 1985, is still active today. Their mission is to call attention to gender imbalances in all spheres of society through performance and visual media campaigns. In their piece on Irish institutions, they cover museums, galleries, art schools and awards. A decade ago, each of these were male dominated. For example, the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI) was 95% men and the solo exhibitions in the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) were made up of 86% men in 2009. I reached out to some of these places to inquire as to whether female representation has increased in the last ten years, either by conscious efforts or unconsciously, and to find out if there were any intentions to provide recognition for women in Irish art. 

NGI stated it recognizes the gender imbalance in their collection and “is committed to addressing this imbalance.” This effort has led to the acquisition of 47 works by women since 2017, with an additional 79 by men for a total of 126 new works. Some of these women include Dorothy Cross, Mary Swanzy and Amelia Stein. NGI noted the following exhibitions either focused on a female artist or “had a large female representation”:

• Margaret Clarke: An Independent Spirit (13 May – 20 August 2017)
• Käthe Kollwitz: Life, Death and War (6 September – 10 December 2017)
• In[Visible]: Irish Women Artists from the Archives (19 July 2018 – 2 March 2019)
• Markievicz: Portraits & Propaganda (27 October 2018 – 2 March 2019)
• Making their Mark: Irish Painter-Etchers & the Etching Revival (2 March – 30 June 2019)
• Shaping Ireland: Landscapes in Irish Art (20 April – 7 July 2019)

The gallery has obviously made steps to represent women more prominently in their collection. Their upcoming exhibition, Drawn from Nature: Irish Botanical Art, in which female artists created 64% of the works, opened on 7 March.

IMMA has made a more conscious effort to rectify the lack of women in their space. Last year, their solo exhibitions featured Mary Swanzy, Helen Cammock, Doris Salcedo, Janet Mularney, and Kim Gorden. Their upcoming solo exhibitions in 2020 include five female and two male artists. Moreover, IMMA is creating a discussion around art, gender, and diversity: they hosted feminist writer Sara Ahmed for a lecture “on the role queer methodologies play in disrupting the normative use of our public institutions.” The museum using their resources to confront gender while simultaneously facilitating exhibitions for women is both an immense growth from their state in 2009 and a model which other institutions should bear in mind. 

The Guerrilla Girls piece implicated the Hugh Lane Gallery in the underrepresentation of women, as well. At the time the work was created, their collection was 90% men. Representatives of the museum at this time were eager to assist with this article, but unfortunately no gendered record of acquisitions exists. However, in regards to the gender ratio, they “assume it hasn’t changed much.” This does align with a statement by the NGI, which asserted that gender discrepancies exist in “all historic collections.” There are in this statement a number of questions, few of which I am able to answer today. Is this imbalance a consequence of there simply being fewer historic female artists? Was their work lost to time or destroyed because it was not valued? Did women make art in nontraditional spaces, thus causing it to be disregarded? These are all questions of history and of how historic narratives are presented through visual mediums such as art. Modern galleries and museums would do well to consider the implications of their collections in what they say about the capabilities of women past and present. 

Women have always made art worthy of acclaim. When the Guerrilla Girls drew attention to the problem with gender disparity in Irish Art institutions, they called upon those spaces to fix things. In some cases, that can mean honoring women posthumously. Valuing contemporary artists, though, is of vital importance: the best way to change the status of female artists is to allow their careers to flourish in the present. 

You can support female artists at NGI by attending the Drawn from Nature: Irish Botanical Art from 7 March to 21 June 2020. Also this year, IMMA will present solo exhibitions from Paula Rego, Chantal Joffe, Bharti Kher, Eva Rothschild and Anjalika Sagar, one of the Otolith Group. This does not include the female artists in their upcoming group exhibitions, Desire and Ghosts from the Recent Past. The museum will also be predominantly showing women through their IMMA Archive: 1990s exhibition.