 |
| I read
recently about Beverly Martyn (or Bev
Kutner) who had worked with Paul Simon, Nick Drake and Jimmy Page before
she met John. I was surprised to hear of their song writing collaborations, her
being a partnership with John Martyn and then her being left at home with the
children, a home on top of a hill. A home she didn't even choose. Apparently
John Martyn wrote his best songs with Beverly Kutner, his wife, which she gets
little credit for. Beverly
and Martyn recorded three albums together - Stormbringer, Road to Ruin and Bless the
Weather - before John was persuaded by the record label to go solo. She played
piano while they wrote songs together for the album Solid Air. John said that he would credit her 'on the next song.' Beverly
was then left on the house on the hill to raise their children while John
toured. When John turned to drink he became abusive towards her and after one
threatening scene Bev decided to leave him after ten years of marriage. |
....and yet
John wrote the deeply caring song 'May You Never', all
very poignant really.
 |
| Beverly and John Martyn |
I also used
to wonder about the artist Margaret Macintosh, the wife of the
better known Glasgow
artist Rennie Macintosh. She was first a collaborator with her sister, and
later with her husband, the architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
Macdonald was celebrated in her time by many of her peers, including her
husband who wrote, "Remember, you
are half if not four-quarters of all my architectural...Margaret has genius, I
have only talent." It is not known exactly which of Charles Rennie
Mackintosh's works Margaret was involved with but she is credited with being an
important part of her husband's figurative, symbolic interior designs. These include the Rose Boudoir at the
International Exhibition at Turin,
the designs for House for an Art Lover and the Willow Tea Rooms. Her best known
works include the panel The May Queen, which was made to partner
Mackintosh's panel The Wassail for Miss Cranston's Ingram Street
Tearooms, and Oh ye, all ye that walk in Willowood, which formed part of
the decorative scheme for the Room de Luxe in the Willow Tearooms. Together
with her husband, her sister, and Herbert MacNair, she was one of the most
influential members of the collective known as the Glasgow Four. She exhibited
with Mackintosh at the 1900 Vienna Secession, where she was arguably an
influence on the Secessionists Gustav
Klimt and Josef Hoffmann.
 |
| Panel by Margaret Macintosh |
There have been some outstanding
women photographers.
Great Women
Photographers include Eve Arnold and Dorothea Lange (Migrant Mother).
 |
| Migrant worker by Dorothea Lange |
Dorothea Lange 1895 – 1965 was an American photo
journalist, best known for her Depression Era work for the Farm Security
Administration ( FSA). Her photographs
drew attention to the plight of migrant farm workers, rural poverty and
exploitation of share croppers. Her husband, economist Paul Taylor, interviewed
and took economic data over the plight of migrant workers while she
photographed and they documented rural poverty and the exploitation of share
croppers and migrant labourers. Her
photos led aid being sent to the camps. Eve Arnold, 1912 - 2012 was an American
photojournalist. She joined Magnum Photos agency in 1951 and became a full
member in 1957. Her interest in photography began in 1946 while working in a
photo-finishing plant and she learned photographic skills from at the New School
for Social Research; She went on to photograph many iconic figures – including
Marilyn Monroe. She left the United States
and moved permanently to England
in the early 1960s. While working for the London Sunday Times, she began to
make serious use of colour photography. She received the Lifetime Achievement
Award from the American Society of Magazine Photographers. She did a series of
portraits of American First Ladies. She received an OBE in 2003.
 |
| Photographer Eve Arnold |
There are
many great women writers - Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, Sylvia Plath, Emily
Bronte, George Eliot, more. I attend the Edinburgh International Book festival (EIBF) each year and in the book world
there is a true equality - its' all about the craft and substance.
In music in recent years there has been a
rise in woman musicians gaining attention, as opposed to decorative woman
singers. In the UK
in particular there has been new strong solo women who play, write and perform
– Adele and Emeli Sande.
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| Emeli Sande |
I have read
of many out standing woman artists down the years – the question is how many of
them have been able to break thorough and most have been left in the shadows of
their better known partners. The women have been left with the day to day
chores of raising children and keeping the home going. Of course being a mother
is and should be the most rewarding job
of all - and it is. I have raised three children and it is also very demanding (!)
on a woman's time and energies. In the UK in particular, the role of
homemaker as it is known in the States, is undervalued and not treated with the
respect the role deserves. In America
mothers are given more respect as they are after all the bedrock of society. I
don't know why.
Even in
today's world of equality were many women are the main wage earners it falls
to their lot to also be the main homemakers too. So this is a few words here to
the forgotten woman artists and writers.. and a special few to those woman who
are breaking free.
Perhaps
women need to feel they can be equals in the creative arts - particularly in
art and music.
To name but
a few of the great women behind the men. I am certain there are many many
more.
 |
| Marilyn Munroe by Eve Arnold |
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