48. Looking back: Drusilla Modjeska on women artists and what they saw

What happens to women's art when the world stops looking?

That's the question at the heart of A Woman's Eye: Her Art, Drusilla Modjeska's book about a century of women artists who made radical, visionary work — and were then, largely, forgotten. Recorded live at Gleebooks before a packed house, this is a conversation about art history as a political act: who gets remembered, who gets written out, and why it keeps happening.

In conversation with literary biographer Bernadette Brennan — who is currently writing Modjeska's own biography — and joined by artist Julie Rrap, Modjeska moves from Wilhelmine Germany to 1920s Paris to the liberation of Dachau, tracing the lives of women who saw things their own way.

Voices

Drusilla Modjeska is the author of Poppy, Stravinsky's Lunch, The Orchid, The Mountain, Second Half First, and A Woman's Eye: Her Art, published by Penguin Books Australia.

Bernadette Brennan is a literary critic and the author of A Writing Life: Helen Garner and Her Work and Leaping into Waterfalls: The Enigmatic Gillian Mears. She is currently writing a biography of Drusilla Modjeska.

Julie Rrap is one of Australia's most significant contemporary artists. Her survey exhibition Past Continuous, centred on SOMOS, was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in 2024–25. SOMOS is now in the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of Western Australia.

A Woman's Eye: Her Art is published by Penguin Books Australia.

Credits

This episode of History Lab was recorded on Gadigal Land, Sydney, at Gleebooks. For more literary events like this one, see the Gleebooks events page.

Edited and mixed by Maksim Voloshin-Cleary.

History Lab is brought to you by the Australian Centre for Public History and UTS Impact Studios. Executive producer is Sarah Gilbert.

Works mentioned

Paula Modersohn-Becker

Self-Portrait on the Sixth Wedding Anniversary (1906) — nude self-portrait depicted as pregnant Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen https://online-sammlung.hamburger-kunsthalle.de | Google Arts & Culture entry from the Böttcherstraße Museums: https://artsandculture.google.com/story/IwVRLMk5ACZUJQ

Lying Mother with Child II (1906) — nude mother reclining with child Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum / Museen Böttcherstraße, Bremen Google Arts & Culture: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/lying-mother-with-child-ii-paula-modersohn-becker/LgGzY69gnE9o7Q

Portrait of Clara Rilke-Westhoff (1905) — Clara with rose Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg Collection record: https://online-sammlung.hamburger-kunsthalle.de/de/objekt/HK-2362

Claude Cahun

I Am in Training, Don't Kiss Me (c.1927) — self-portrait with pursed lips and curls Jersey Heritage Collection Jersey Heritage page on Cahun: https://www.jerseyheritage.org/history/claude-cahun-and-jersey/

Que me veux-tu? / What Do You Want From Me? (1928) — double-exposure composite self-portrait Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris Also held in the Met collection: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/838682

Self-portrait in jester jacket (c.1928) — catching the viewer's gaze Jersey Heritage Collection (as above)

Dora Maar

Untitled [Assia] (1934) — model casting dramatic shadow Centre Pompidou, Paris (various versions held there and elsewhere) Pompidou reproduction page: https://editions.centrepompidou.fr/en/home-decor/dora-maar-reproduction-untitled-assia/1577.html

Nusch Éluard on the beach (c.1935) — photograph of Éluard lying on beach Centre Pompidou, Musée national d'art moderne, Paris AWARE Women Artists entry with collection details: https://awarewomenartists.com/en/artiste/dora-maar/

Lee Miller

Tanja Ramm under a Bell Jar (1931) — woman's head enclosed in glass bell jar Lee Miller Archives (Farley Farm, Sussex); widely reproduced but not in a single permanent public collection page — the Lee Miller Archives hold the primary rights: https://www.leemiller.co.uk

Lee Miller in Hitler's Bathtub, Munich (1945) — photographed by David Scherman Held at Tate Britain Tate collection record: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/miller-scherman-lee-miller-in-hitlers-bathtub-munich-x100252

Julie Rrap

SOMOS (Standing On My Own Shoulders) (2023) — life-sized bronze, artist standing on her own shoulders Permanent collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia; also shown at MCA Sydney Ocula interview with full context: https://ocula.com/magazine/conversations/julie-rrap-standing-on-her-own-shoulders/ MCA exhibition page: https://www.mca.com.au (search "Julie Rrap Past Continuous")