Peeling Potatoes, Painting Pictures
Women Artists in Post-Soviet Russia, Estonia and Latvia - The First Decade

A study of women artists in Russia, Estonia and Latvia in the post-Soviet era. Based on over 60 interviews conducted between 1995 and 1998, it explores the difficulties of women pursuing an art career in a male-dominated society, and the attitudes of their male counterparts to feminist concerns.

How do women artists in Russia, Estonia and Latvia view themselves in the post-Soviet era? What is their relationship to feminism and how has that relationship changed following the fall of the Soviet regime? Having conducted over 60 interviews between 1995 and 1998, Renee and Matthew Baigell explore in this volume these women's difficulties of pursuing an art career in a male-dominated society, and the attitudes of their male counterparts toward feminist concerns. The artists interviewed - some born as early as the 1920s, others as recently as the 1970s - discuss their private lives and situations, as well as specific works of art. They reveal a wide range of attitudes and a complex relationship with a feminist movement often regarded as an alien import from the West. Gender issues in art school, parental attitudes toward the prospect of their daughters becoming artists, the demands and strains of career and family life, and questions regarding a female approach to imagery are among the topics raised, as are these artists' hopes and dreams for the future. This book also includes a brief chronology of pertinent art exhibitions during the 1990s.