Founded in Manchester in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, her daughters, Christabel, Sylvia, and Adela, and a local group of women socialists and labour activists, the Women’s Suffrage and Political Union (WSPU) distinguished itself within the suffrage movement with its militancy and strategy of direct action. “Deeds not Words” was their motto and public demonstrations were their stock in trade. Intended to garner front page media attention and public sympathy for their cause, the group’s disregard for convention, and their ingenuity in dealing with official resistance brought national and international recognition as well as condemnation. Labeled ‘suffragettes’ by the popular press, the term was intended to ridicule and diminish the actions of WSPU until they reclaimed it, giving the name to their journal and publishing this notice in 1914: “We have all heard of the girl who asked what was the difference between a Suffragist and a Suffragette, as she pronounced it, and the answer made to her that the ‘Suffragist jist wants the vote, while the Suffragette means to get it.’” This series of paintings is the product of research on these exceptional militant women in Edwardian society and the particular challenges they faced in the pursuit. It includes portraits of the suffragettes, their allies, and opponents.
Suffragette présente en images comment la Women’s Social and Political Union, basée à Manchester, a contribué aux changements historiques survenus en Grande-Bretagne au tournant du XXe siècle. L’installation, qui cerne un moment charnière d’une lutte difficile pour l’égalité économique et sociale, présente soixante portraits de petit format des principales actrices de ce groupe de suffragettes et de quelques-uns de leurs alliés, partisans, opposants et contemporains impliqués dans des mouvements de réforme sociale connexes. La Women’s Suffrage and Political Union (WSPU) fut fondée en 1903, à Manchester, par Emmeline Pankhurst, ses filles Christabel, Sylvia, et Adela, ainsi qu’un groupe local de femmes socialistes et de militantes de la classe ouvrière. La WSPU s’est distinguée au sein même du mouvement suffragiste par son militantisme et sa stratégie d’action directe. Leur motto était « Des actions, pas des mots » (Deeds not Words) et leurs manifestations publiques, leur mode opératoire. Leur mépris des conventions et l’ingénuité déployée face à la répression, pour attirer l’attention médiatique et gagner la sympathie du public à leur cause, leur valut une reconnaissance nationale et internationale mais aussi d’être dénigrées. Qualifiées de «suffragettes» par la presse populaire pour ridiculiser et discréditer leur engagement, les femmes de la WSPU finissent par s’approprier le terme et l’utilisent pour nommer leur journal. Elles publient en 1914 cette anecdote: «On a tous entendu parler de cette fille qui demandait quelle était la différence entre entre suffragiste et suffragette, comme elle le prononçait (en anglais), et qui s’est vu répondre que la suffragiste veut le droit de vote, mais que c’est la suffragette qui se bat pour l’obtenir.» Cette série de peintures découle d’une recherche sur ces femmes militantes exceptionnelles et les défis particuliers qu’elles ont rencontré dans leur combat pour l’égalité dans la société édouardienne. Traduction: Francine Lalonde.
The series comprises seventy-three paintings based on historical photographs and related readings drawn from the archive at the Museum of London and various related online sources and books. The paintings includes portraits of key figures within the suffragette movement, some of the individuals from the 19th century who influenced the movement in Britain directly or indirectly, and their political adversaries, as well as paintings made after press photos of the actions and events that brought the suffragettes cause to public attention (2011-2025).
In order of appearance: Emmeline Pankhurst and her eldest daughter Christabel, followed by Mrs. Pankhurst’s two other younger daughters, E. Sylvia Pankhurst, and Adela Pankhurst and they are in turn are followed by just a sampling from the thousands of women activists who would come to comprise the WSPU fraternity. Annie Kenney, Mary Leigh, Emily Wilding Davison, Mary Richardson, Mary Leigh, Edith New, Mary Blathwayt, Teresa Billington Greig, Marion Wallace Dunlop, Lady Constance Georgina Bulwer-Lytton, Dame Ethel Mary Smyth, Norah Lyle-Smyth, Patricia Woodlock, Mabel Capper, Kitty Marion, and Lilian Lenton.
The Influencers’ and Supporter’s portraits include: Frederick Douglass, an American abolitionist, who toured Britain on speaking engagements in 1845, Ida B. Wells, who visited in the late 1900’s was active in the American civil rights movement for African Americans, Louise Michel, a French feminist and anarchist, Henri Rochefort, a French journalist and noted polemicist, Charles Stewart Parnell, a Protestant, Anglo/Irish landowner and British MP, Jenny Julia Eleanor Marx, Richard Pankhurst, family patriarch and socialist, Keir Hardie, a trade unionist, socialist, Labour Party co-founder, Labour MP, a pacifist and supporter of women’s suffrage, British feminist and social reformer, Josephine Butler, American abolitionist and social reformers William Lloyd Garrison, Charles Lenox Remond and his sister Sarah Parker Remond, and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence and her husband Frederick William Pethick-Lawrence.
The Monarchs and Political Opponents list consists of: Queen Victoria 1819-1901, King Edward VII 1901-l910, King George V, 1910-1936, Prime Minister Henry Campbell Bannerman (1905-1908), Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, Countess Margot Asquith, Beatrice Venetia Stanley, David Lloyd George, cabinet minister and ring leader of the party progressives, and his first wife Dame Margaret Lloyd George followed by Lady Frances Lloyd-George, who was his secretary and mistress for many years, and after Margaret died, became his second wife, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, Home Secretary with his mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, Lady Clementine Ogilvy Spencer-Churchill, spouse of Winston Churchill, Reginald McKenna, Home Secretary.
The Actions and Events represented include: the arrest of Emmeline Pankhurst in 1914, Flora Drummond at a rally for Irish Home Rule (1914), Emily Wilding Davison’s protests at Epson Derby (1913), Lady Constance Lytton’s police escort from Holloway prison (1909), Mary Leigh in uniform for The Women’s Drum and Fife Band (1909), the arrests and detainments of Sylvia Pankhurst (1914), Dora Marsden (1909), Grace Roe (1914), Olive Walton (1914), Grace Macron (1912),Margaret Scott, Jane Short, May McFarland, Olive Hocken (1912), suffragettes Christobel and Emmeline Pankhurst and Flora Drummond in criminal court (1908), as well as various public performances, speeches and demonstrations involving, among others, suffragettes Daisy and Una Dugdale, and Patricia Woodcock (1908), Annie Kenney, Lady Constance Lytton, Dr. Ethel Smith (1911).