Overlooked female modernist artist Marthe Donas dazzles in Belgium

<p>Antwerp exhibition testifies to growing recognition of woman who took gender-neutral name Tour to get on</p><p>In the turbulent years after the first world war when artistic experiment flourished, critics were intrigued by the mysteriously named modernist Tour Donas. “There is a kind of charm in Tour Donas’s work that we are not accustomed to seeing in painters of his school,” wrote one, “a kind of gentle timidity that seems to reveal a feminine sensitivity.” His work, was in fact, her work; namely Marthe Donas, a Belgian who had taken a gender-neutral name to get on in the male-dominated art world.</p><p>As Tour Donas, Marthe enjoyed a brief but dazzling career, before falling into obscurity. Now the city of her birth, Antwerp, is hosting a major exhibition to place her in the modernist pantheon, alongside <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/piet-mondrian">Piet Mondrian</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/nov/21/modigliani-review-tate-modern-a-gorgeous-show-about-a-slightly-silly-artist">Amedeo Modigliani</a> and Alexander Archipenko, the Ukrainian sculptor who was her mentor, as well as romantic and creative partner.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/oct/03/overlooked-female-modernist-artist-marthe-donas-tour-dazzles-in-belgium">Continue reading...</a>