Lilith
(c. 1920s)
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Felton Bequest, 1948
© the Artist's Estate. All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images
- Gallery location
- Late 19th & early 20th Century Paintings & Decorative Arts Gallery
Level 2, NGV International
About this work
As the women’s movement gained momentum in the early twentieth century, icons of female power assumed new currency. Scottish lesbian artist Ethel Walker’s fascination with the subject of Lilith reflects her personal identification with an ideal of feminine mystery and dominance in harmony with the natural world. Banished from Eden for her refusal to ‘lie beneath’ Adam, and associated in the artistic and literary tradition with witchcraft, Lilith was reclaimed at the fin de siècle as a figure of defiance, freedom and equality. Walker’s Lilith, Classical and statuesque, is serenely at one with the fertile natural environment. Far from the cruel archetype of the Christian tradition, Lilith is here absorbed into an emerging queer feminist vision which embraced new pantheistic spiritual movements.
Artwork Details
Felton Bequest, 1948
© the Artist's Estate. All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Ms Carol Grigor through Metal Manufactures Limited
Level 2, NGV International