Suffrage and the Arts

Suffrage and the arts' is an illuminating account of women as artists, designers, makers and consumers of visual culture, throughout the campaign for female suffrage in Britain, from 1880 to the 1930s, when universal suffrage was finally granted. Published to coincide with the centenary of female suffrage in the UK, this volume provides a platform for new research at the intersections of politics, creativity and enterprise in a tumultuous period. It builds on existing scholarship, in particular Lisa Tickner's 'The Spectacle of women, to reflect on the multifaceted and often contradictory ways in which women thought about both political rights and their own professional creativity.0Contributors consider the artistic organisations and institutions which became targets for suffrage action and a depository of women's art practice. They assess the importance of individual women artists and makers who were associated with the suffragists' cause, and explore the commercial and entrepreneurial aspects of women's visual cultural production in the period. They also discuss the impact of new rights enshrined in the Representation of the People Act in 1918 and the Equal Franchise Act in 1928 in cultural production by women.