Marlow Moss

British artist Marlow Moss (b. 1889 in Kilburn, London, d. 1958 in Penzance, Cornwall) was one of the few female representatives of constructivist art during its beginnings. As a rebel against traditional notions of art and gender, she gave up her female given name Marjorie Jewel in 1919 and called herself Marlow from then on. She cut her hair short and began to mainly wear jodhpurs and shirts. Her art was initially oriented toward Piet Mondrian’s neoplasticism, which she then however extended autonomously and transferred to reliefs and sculptures. One of her most important inventions was the so-called double line, a dynamizing compositional element consisting of two thin parallel lines, which she started to use in her paintings in 1930. Mondrian incorporated this element into his own compositions, but did not point out that Moss was its initiator.

The intention of this exhibition is to draw attention to the oeuvre of Marlow Moss, as it has been overshadowed by the famous male constructivists for far too long, and to prompt a more in-depth reception thereof within art history.

9.2.–7.5.2017
curated by Lucy Howarth and Sabine Schaschl

The curators Lucy Howarth and Sabine Schaschl take you on a digital short tour through the exhibition of Marlow Moss