The Other Side of the Picture

Canadian artist Doris McCarthy surveys the landscape of Lake Huron, made famous by her teacher, Arthur Lismer, and other Group of Seven painters. "When I was growing up, I heard, and I actually believed, that there had never been any great women artists. This was the wisdom of the day." At the remounting of The Dinner Party, artist Judy Chicago remarks on her success as a woman artist. "You don't get preserved, you get buried." Two different artists from two generations, but how much have things changed? Filmmaker Teresa MacInnes tackles the debate: Are there no great women artists? The statistics are revealing. At Washington's National Gallery only 1 in every 30 paintings is by a woman. In Canada, women account for a mere 8 percent of the National Gallery's collection. The Other Side of the Picture takes us into the homes and studios of artists such as Mary Pratt, Joyce Weiland, Jane Ash Poitras and Landon Mackenzie, who address the question of inequality in the art world. Traversing the last two centuries of women's art history, this film offers provocative comment on why we are still missing the "other side of the picture".