Picturing the genders

Charles Harrison, Trish Evans, Tony Coe

A documentary that looks at women as artists, as subjects of paintings by both male and female artists, and the roles of and discrimination against women artists historically. Charles Harrison and Trish Evans analyze female subjects painted by Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas, Auguste Renoir, and others to explore male and female points of view as represented by the artists. Only one per cent of the paintings in the National Gallery's historical collection are by women artists. This programme offers two ways of explaining this statistic -- firstly that women in the past were deprived of the opportunity to become artists; and secondly, that the artistic vision and legacy of women is still being discriminated against.