Hettie Judah is a writer and curator. She is a regular contributor to The Guardian, Frieze and The Times Literary Supplement, and writes a monthly column for Apollo magazine. Her writing on art can also be found in Art Quarterly, Art Monthly, ArtReview and other publications with 'art' in the title.

Hettie is curator of the Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood which opened at the Arnolfini in Bristol on 9 March 2024, and is currently on show at MAC in Birmingham. It will tour to Millennium Gallery in Sheffield and DCA Dundee during 2024/2025.

The standalone book Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood was published in the UK and Europe by Thames & Hudson on 4 July 2024, and will come out in the US and Canada on 3 September 2024.

Following publication of her 2020 study on the impact of motherhood on artists’ careers, in 2021 she worked with a group of artists to draw up the manifesto How Not To Exclude Artist Parents, now available in 16 languages. She regularly talks about art and with artists for colleges, as well as museum and gallery events. A supporter of Arts Emergency she has mentored artists and students through a variety of different schemes. As a broadcaster she can be heard (and sometimes seen) on programmes including BBC Radio 4’s Front Row and Art That Made Us. Recent books include How Not To Exclude Artist Mothers (and other parents) (Lund Humphries, 2022) and Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones (John Murray, London, 2022/ Penguin, NY, 2023).

In 2022, together with Jo Harrison, Hettie co-founded the Art Working Parents Alliance - a supportive network and campaigning group for curators, academics, gallerists, technicians, educators and others working in the arts. Find out more and join the network here.

Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood

Exhibition commissioned by Hayward Gallery Touring

For general press enquiries please contact Laura Gosney: laura.gosney@southbankcentre.co.uk

“Acts of Creation is riveting from first to last” Laura Cumming, The Observer

“There are many reasons to enjoy - or in my case to love - Acts of Creation” Waldemar Januszsczak, The Sunday Times

Museums and galleries are full of paintings and sculptures of mothers, from Michaelangelo’s Madonna and Child to Da Vinci’s Madonna Lita. However art which communicates the actual experience of motherhood is much rarer. Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood seeks to address this blind spot by asserting the artist mother as an important cultural figure.

Featuring the work of more than 60 modern and contemporary artists, this major group exhibition explores the diverse experience of motherhood across three themes; creation, maintenance and loss. Its artworks explore the lived state of motherhood, presenting a complex and varied image with relation to contemporary concerns about gender, politics, caregiving and reproductive rights. At its heart is a series of revelatory self-portraits celebrating the artist as mother.

Consisting of works of painting, photography, sculpture, sound and film, Acts of Creation is accompanied by a lively programme of public events.

9 March – 26 May 2024 Arnolfini, Bristol

22 June – 29 September 2024 Midlands Art Centre (MAC), Birmingham

24 October 2024 – 19 January 2025 Millennium Gallery, Sheffield

February – June 2025 Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA), Dundee

Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood

Hettie Judah

UK - Thames & Hudson | 4 July 2024 | 150 illustrations | £30

USA - Thames & Hudson | 3 September 2024 | 150 illustrations | $39.95

For UK/ Europe press enquiries please contact Harriet Clarke: h.clarke@thameshudson.co.uk

For USA/ Canada press enquiries please contact Harry Burton: hburton@thames.wwnorton.com

Exploring motherhood through the work of artists from prehistory to the present day, Acts of Creation addresses the abiding mother-shaped hole in art history.

Long taboo, lived experiences of motherhood – and all that accompanies it – are now the subject of urgent discussion. Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood delves into the joys and heartaches, mess, myths and mishaps of motherhood through over 150 artworks, from ancient goddess artifacts to contemporary interpretations of pregnancy in the present.

While the Madonna and Child archetype has dominated Western art, we rarely encounter art about real motherhood, in all its raw, unfiltered complexity. Renowned author and curator Hettie Judah examines how shifting ideals of motherhood have been constructed and promoted through visual culture. Moving into the 20th and 21st centuries, it also looks at how women artists – among them Barbara Hepworth, Jenny Saville, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Betye Saar, Suzanne Valadon, Louise Bourgeois, Carrie Mae Weems – have worked to subvert these ideals and reclaim the narrative. Women have long been told that they cannot be both an artist and a mother: here the artist mother is instead addressed as an important cultural paradigm. Acts of Creation explores lived experience of motherhood – and of not becoming a mother – offering a complex account that engages with ongoing concerns around gender, caregiving and reproductive rights.

Published to coincide with the acclaimed Hayward Gallery touring exhibition of the same name, Acts of Creation is an engaging, thought-provoking, and richly illustrated, must-read on the evolving discourse on motherhood, offering a fresh perspective that challenges conventions and inspires change.

EARLY PRAISE FOR ACTS OF CREATION:

“Hettie Judah’s enthralling and important book expands a male-centred art history to include mothers as subjects and symbols, makers and myths.”

Jennifer Higgie

“One of the most electrifying and important books I have ever read… Every sentence and work crackles and sparks. I didn’t want it to end. Stunning, urgent and extremely inspiring. We all need this book.”

Lucy Jones, author of Matrescence

“An important and eye-opening book grounded in Judah’s extensive experience and research… this is a book I will keep close and refer to time and time again. It is time motherhood comes out of the margins and we see, hear and talk about the extensive invisible labour, joy, pain of mothering. This book is a much-needed addition to the canon.”

Dr Pragya Agarwal, author of M(otherhood)

Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones (John Murray 2022/ Penguin 2023)

For UK press enquiries please contact Xanthe Rendall: Xanthe.Rendall@johnmurraypress.co.uk

For US press enquiries please contact Bel Banta:

bbanta@penguinrandomhouse.com

For information on UK rights click here and permissions and distribution click here

Inspired by the lapidaries of the ancient world, Lapidarium is a collection of essays about sixty different stones that have influenced our shared history.

The earliest scientists ground and processed minerals in a centuries-long quest for a mythic stone that would prolong human life. Michelangelo climbed mountains in Tuscany searching for the sugar-white marble that would yield his sculptures. Catherine the Great wore the wealth of Russia stitched in gemstones onto the front of her bodices.

Through the realms of art, myth, geology, philosophy and power, the story of humanity can be told through the minerals and materials that have allowed us to evolve and create. From the Taiwanese national treasure known as the Meat-Shaped Stone to Malta’s prehistoric “fat lady” temples carved in globigerina limestone to the amethyst crystals still believed to have healing powers, Lapidarium is a jewel box of sixty far-flung stones and the stories that accompany them. Together, they explore how human culture has formed stone, and the roles stone has played in forming human culture.   

How Not To Exclude Artist Mothers (and other parents) (Lund Humphries, 2022)

For press enquiries please contact Victoria Benjamin: vbenjamin@lundhumphries.com

For information on distribution and rights click here or contact Eleanor Hooker: ehooker@lundhumphries.com

For too long, artists have been told that they can't have both motherhood and a successful career. In this polemical volume, critic and campaigner Hettie Judah argues that a paradigm shift is needed within the art world to take account of the needs of artist mothers (and other parents: artist fathers, parents who don't identify with the term 'mother', and parents in other sectors of the art world).

Drawing on interviews with artists internationally, the book highlights some of the success stories that offer models for the future, from alternative support networks and residency models, to studio complexes with onsite childcare, and galleries with family-friendly policies.

Some artists have described motherhood as providing them with renewed focus, a new direction in their work, and even inspiration for a complete change of career. Other artists choose to keep their domestic and creative lives compartmentalised. All are placed at a disadvantage by the art world as it is currently structured. This book argues that by making changes and becoming more sensitive to the needs of artist parents, the art world has much to gain.