The Woman and Art Ex­hi­bi­tion which opened at the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um and Art Gallery on Wednes­day, is ded­i­cat­ed to pi­o­neer­ing woman artist Sybil At­teck on the cen­te­nary of her birth. The ex­hi­bi­tion, with the theme A Jour­ney to the Past, Per­spec­tives on then Fu­ture, fea­tures 77 works of art from 64 women artists from across the coun­try. It in­cludes paint­ings, sculp­tures, in­stal­la­tion works, pho­tog­ra­phy and film span­ning the pe­ri­od 1939 to 2011.

In an ad­dress at the launch of the ex­hi­bi­tion, Nela Khan, Par­lia­men­tary Rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the Min­istry of the Arts and Mul­cul­tur­al­ism, said At­teck was cred­it­ed with es­tab­lish­ing the "first recog­nis­able school of art" in T&T. "To­day, as we ho­n­our the con­tri­bu­tion of Sybil At­teck and oth­er women artists, we are once again re­mind­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go has a rich cul­tur­al her­itage. "Im­ages of tra­di­tion­al dances, fes­ti­vals, lo­cal tra­di­tions, cus­toms and is­sues such as gen­der, sex­u­al­i­ty and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty are just some of the top­ics ad­dressed by our many tal­ent­ed artists."

Khan al­so recog­nised the con­tri­bu­tion of Fraulein Rud­der, who found­ed the Women in Art Or­gan­i­sa­tion in 1996, and has pro­mot­ed the work of women artists through an­nu­al ex­hi­bi­tions. Act­ing cu­ra­tor at the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um, Nimah Muwak­il-Za­kuri, said woman have been pi­o­neers of art prac­tice and art ed­u­ca­tion in T&T for many decades, al­though this re­mained un­ac­knowl­edged at the na­tion­al lev­el. "The sta­tis­tics will show that there is a large per­cent­age of fe­male art ed­u­ca­tors in our sec­ondary and ter­tiary in­sti­tu­tions. This trend fol­lows a long tra­di­tion that be­gan with artists such as Amy Leong Pang, Sybil At­teck and Pat Bish­op, who were, and in the case of Ms Bish­op, is still a pi­o­neer in the field of art ed­u­ca­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go," she said.

"This ex­hi­bi­tion seeks to recog­nise the work of these cul­tur­al icons in the field of the vi­su­al arts, as well as in­spire younger artists, both male and fe­male, to want to fol­low in their foot­steps."

Sybil Mar­jorie At­teck, born Feb­ru­ary 3, 1911, was a painter known for her work in wa­ter­colour.

A na­tive of Rio Claro, At­teck moved with her fam­i­ly to Port-of-Spain when she was in her ear­ly teens. There, she be­came in­volved in nu­mer­ous artis­tic pur­suits, with the en­cour­age­ment of her grand­moth­er.

In 1928 she joined the Botan­i­cal De­part­ment of the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, where she be­gan to pro­duce sci­en­tif­ic draw­ings of flow­ers. Some of these were ex­hib­it­ed by the So­ci­ety of Trinidad In­de­pen­dents in 1930.

In 1934, At­teck trav­eled to Eng­land, to study at the Re­gent Street Poly­tech­nic in Lon­don. Up­on her re­turn to Trinidad she re­sumed her for­mer po­si­tion. At­teck trav­elled again to study, in 1943, when she at­tend­ed the School of Fine Arts, Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty, and again in 1948, when she en­tered the Es­cuela de Belles Artes in Li­ma. Dur­ing the for­mer so­journ she stud­ied with Max Beck­mann, whose ideas were to have a pro­found ef­fect on her work. In Pe­ru she stud­ied the pot­tery of the In­ca, a form which she found re­lat­ed to the pre-Columbian art of the Caribbean with which she was fa­mil­iar. Styl­is­ti­cal­ly, At­teck re­mained an ex­pres­sion­ist for much of her ca­reer, which opened her to charges of be­ing "un-Trinida­di­an."

Nev­er­the­less she ex­ert­ed a great deal of in­flu­ence on her con­tem­po­raries; Car­lyle Chang, Willi Chen, Leo Glas­gow and Ni­na Squires were among the artists in­flu­enced by her work. At­teck died in 1975.