Visionary Artists, Parallel Lives -Gladys Mgudlandlu

15 Maggie Laubser Portrait of an Old Woman oil on cardboard 41,5 by 36 cm private collection Laubser’s portraits might perhaps speak of a female’s endeavours to negotiate avant-garde initiatives within a visual discourse in which the woman artist is an anomaly. The cool, almost detached division of the face into simplified visual components suggests no impetus on the part of Laubser to construct her sitters as troubled outsiders or bohemians, visionaries on the margins of society. One does not read the robust mark-making here as a signifier of anxiety or passion – a reading encouraged by Schmidt-Rottluff’s portraits. Equally, in its avoidance of any particular signifiers of sexual allure, Laubser does not construct her portraits as desirable ‘others’. The slight slackening of the chin, that is a feature of many women in their middle age is in evidence but is presented as dispassionately as the line of the brow, the shape of the nose, the form of the hair. Brenda Schmahmann (2004) Through the Looking Glass: Representations of Self by South African Women Artists , Johannesburg: David Krut, page 10.