The University of Birmingham's Barber Institute, founded by Dame
Martha Constance Hattie Barber in memory of her husband William
Henry Barber, is reputed to have one of the finest collections of
art assembled in Britain in the 20th century. It has increasingly
opened its doors to the LGBT community and, in fact, is proud to
acknowledge that many of the artworks have a distinctly queer
aesthetic. I was taken round the gallery space by Alex Jolly, who
gave me a delightful tour of all that was LGBT in the Barber
Institute.
Perhaps already known to some, courtesy of feminist art
activists the Guerilla
Girls, Rosalba Carriera is the code-name of one of the
anonymous activists who fight sexism and the erasure of
women's history in the fine arts. The original Carriera (1675-1757)
was an unmarried Venetian painter famous for her miniatures but
also for her portrait of Gustavus Hamilton, second Viscount Boyne
(1710-1746), a young well-travelled, unmarried gender-queer
aristocrat. Were Carriera and Boyne sending us messages further
down the centuries when she portrayed Hamilton in a
gender-ambiguous tricorn hat worn by men and women, or the
feminine lace veil with which he covers his red hair? The white
mask on his head is pushed to one side, and could have been
successfully used to mask his gender at the Venetian carnival he
appears to have come from.
Many of us think our 'gaydar' can tell us if the eyes looking
out from a photo or painting show desire or mere curiosity. One
such portrait (detail shown right), of Countess Golovine
(1766- 1821), was painted by Élisabeth Vigeé-Lebrun
(1755-1842), who was one of the most in-demand artists of her
time. Vigeé-Lebrun was a royalist and great friend of the
doomed French queen Marie Antoinette, who she painted several
times. She fled France at the time of the Revolution and remained
in exile, where she became a member of the Academies of Florence,
Rome, Bologna, St Petersburg and Berlin. She became close friends
with Countess Golovine who was also an artist and composer. The
Countess was forced to escape St Petersburg due to scandalous
rumours about her personal life. She is shown dressed in bohemian
clothes for the time, the Turkish shawl draped over her shoulders
and the looseness of her hair betraying hints of danger. But
it is the expression in her eyes that has intrigued scholars. She
gazes straight at the painter with such a warmth and (some say)
longing that it is thought, though they were both married to men,
they may have been bisexual and had a secret affair.
The Barber Institute provides tours and talks for LGBT History
Month. This opening up of a fine art and museum space to queer
interpretations of some of its collections is refreshing and should
be supported. Go visit!
www.barber.org.uk/
The Barber Institute of Fine Arts
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TS
