15 January 2016

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Rest Time in the Life Class was painted by Dorothy Johnstone (1892-1980) in 1923. It’s ‘a kind of self-portrait of the artist. She is in the shadows at the back, hand on hip, authoritatively teaching an all-female life drawing class at Edinburgh College of Art. In the foreground is a model, being carefully observed and drawn by two other young women. Johnstone’s painting is a rare, fascinating and arresting portrait of women at their creative work: drawing, thinking, and communing with one another’: from Charlotte Runcie’s piece in the Telegraph, which ends: ‘This show is a call to arms for more research and critical celebration of talents, who have been heavily neglected, suppressed and ignored for too long.’