Escaping the Frame

Have you ever stood in front of a picture in an art gallery, read the short notes that often accompany it and wished the subject could step out of the frame and talk to you, answer your questions and give their own version of the events depicted?

This collection of short monologues gives a voice to a group of women who have become famous as the subject of great works of art executed by men, or are themselves artists, but have had little or no chance to speak in their own voices about the events surrounding the making of the pictures.

In this era of #MeToo and #Timesup, when more and more women are clamouring to have their voices heard, they present Book and Reading Groups as well as the general reader with intriguing and often provocative ways of looking at well-known pictures from a female standpoint. The art works featured here range across six centuries, raising important questions about women as subjects of the male gaze and the changing role of women in art across the centuries.

All the pictures chosen can easily be accessed on-line.