National Gallery of Art
Washington, D.C.
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After Judith Leyster’s death in 1660, “her work—and her existence—was largely forgotten,” said Elizabeth Jordan in Roll Call. “It wasn’t until 1893” that Leyster was identified as the creator of even a single painting. Now we’re aware of as many as 20, and the National Gallery has gathered 10 of them into a “small but lovely” exhibition that celebrates the Dutch artist’s 400th birthday. Canvases full of drunkards, musicians, and revelers all reflect a “relaxed and casual” hedonism she learned from contemporary Franz Hals, with whom she probably studied. “One of the gallery’s most prized possessions” is a 1633 self-portrait of Leyster, “holding a brush and palette and leaning back in her chair to reveal an unfinished work on an easel.”
“The brush in her right hand points at the man’s crotch—a bawdy nuance, and to the taste of the time,” said Peter Schjeldahl in The New Yorker. Leyster herself seems “not quite pretty” but certainly extremely confident in her ability to excel in a profession dominated by men. “I knew Leyster was good”—she was one of the first major artists “rediscovered” by feminist art critics in the 1970s. But, having never seen many of her works in one place, I was blown away by the “blazing originality” of paintings like The Serenade or The Last Drop, “in which two carousers are attended by a ferociously gleeful skeleton” who holds a skull in one hand and an hourglass in the other. When I realized this “great artist” quit working before 30, sacrificing her career to that of her husband (a far more mediocre painter), I was filled with “indignation on her behalf.”
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