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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/sep/22/ce-roser-painter-101-uk-women-in-the-arts-foundation>
"In January of 1971, the American art historian Linda Nochlin published a
landmark essay,
Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? It was a
provocation and a call to arms that was to send shockwaves through the arts
establishment.
“It wasn’t just a problem for artists,” says Ce Roser, more than half a century
on. “My older friends could not get shows, although they had had brilliant
careers before, and that happened also to all of my friends who were poets or
writers. Nobody seemed to be able to establish themselves as career artists. So
we got together, we complained, and I decided we should have a meeting and
really talk seriously about it.”
That first meeting at Roser’s home in New York led to the establishment of the
Women in the Arts Foundation, which took to the streets to force a change in
the status quo. As well as being a priceless witness to an activist movement
that altered history, she is also making her own history at London’s VeneKlasen
gallery this month, as the first American artist to make their European debut
as a centenarian.
Meeting Roser over video link in her New York home, everything about her is
surprising: she is 101 but could pass for 30 years younger. She was born in the
US to Chinese parents, but insists that she never experienced racial
discrimination. She doesn’t buy the idea that female artists, herself included,
are constantly reforgotten today, as they were in the past. Her memory is as
sharp and bright as the art she continues to make in the studio where she has
worked for more than 70 years."
Via Susan ****
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*** Xanni ***
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mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics