Neith the Weaver

The common narrative among writers describing the women artists in the Abstract Expressionist movement is that they were ‘trying to be like the boys,’ to act macho so as to be taken more seriously as artists. That observation, which is actually criticism, is made regarding Grace [Hartigan] and Elaine [de Kooning] because of their heavy drinking and their many sexual liaisons. And it is made about Joan [Mitchell] because of her appearance, her drinking, her brawling, and her language. But in each of those cases, the character traits the woman supposedly assumed to fit into a male universe developed out of the person she was before she arrived on the scene. These three were not reacting to an environment and engaging in role-playing for career or social advantage. They were strong women, and they had gravitated toward the downtown scene in part because they believed they could be themselves there without censure. And for the most part, among their peers, they could. Especially Joan. Once, in the Cedar, the veteran artist and Club éminence grise Landes Lewitin, who was notorious for undressing women with his eyes, came up behind Joan and cupped her breast in his hand. 'Without missing a beat,’ Joan’s biographer Patricia Albers wrote, 'she swung her arm down’ and grabbed him by the balls. The bar went silent. And then it exploded in laughter at the stunned old man’s expense. It was a new day for those women who dared to seize it, and woe to those men who were too slow to recognize the change.