The Broad Canvas

Pauline Carey is an actor, playwright, and fiction writer. She is the
author of Magic and What’s in a Name?

Like many of the 30 women artists profiled in this collection, the poet
Linda Rogers and the photographer Barbara Pedrick live in Victoria.
Rogers’s lively profiles are supplemented with informal
black-and-white photographs. Occasionally, a profile is followed by a
poem, either by Rogers or by the subject herself (e.g., P.K. Page and
Susan Musgrave). Color illustrations of work by visual artists (e.g.,
Carole Sabiston and Phyllis Serota) are also included in the book.

The story of Elizabeth Hopkins, a painter born in the 19th century who
did not become famous until she was in her 80s, opens the collection.
Concluding it is a profile of Barbara Livingston, a singer in her 40s
who has a shining future before her. Viewed in their entirety, the
chronologically ordered profiles present an intriguing picture of
changing attitudes toward women artists. However, as the book makes
clear, women who wish to be artists still encounter many
difficulties—in the workplace, in marriage, and finally in old age.
Sexism is all but gone; ageism is still with us.

In her candid introduction, Rogers confesses she once had contempt for
“women and the womanly arts.” This intimate and intriguing book
makes the reader grateful she had a change of heart.