Was Elizabeth Nourse already about that new wave feminism when she made Woman with a Bundle of Sticks?

The untranslated title in French is Femme aux Fagots so let us get those giggles out of the way. Haha, lol, yes we know the title has the word fagot in it (it’s a reference to sticks duh), and yes, Elizabeth Nourse never married and seems to have only known women. Probably because other women could identify her as a person while the art-auctioneer bros would mix her up with her friend Mary Cassatt and generally just make a mess of things.

But this is the real deal; this painting is the matriarchy incarnate and even misogynistic journalist hacks recognized that Nourse was on to something. Mom is working hard and looking trendy in those Birkenstocks, baby girl soaking up lessons from the best and only role model around. This is what the world is like when men aren’t in the picture, the same, but better? I mean, even the chickens look familial and at-peace with everything.

Nourse managed to actualize and put her theories about a no-boys-allowed world into practice. The five decades that she spent in Paris and around Europe and North Africa with her sister Louise were almost entirely about lady friends and lady-peasant scenes and hard work. It’s that Rosie the Riveter lifestyle but painted by a woman too: let them fight their wars, we don’t need dudes.

Men both urban and rural have a history of trying to pilot humanity into oblivion, making Nourse’s vision seem not only good but also paradisal enough for the patriarchy itself to take an interest. In her day Rodin, the Salon, various art dealers, and the French Government gave her props, recognition, and even money in exchange for art. Today, fashion label campaigns reference Femmes aux Fagots in an ironically capitalistic appropriation of the image of the working-woman, inviting the kind of cynicism that probably kept Nourse in strictly female company for all of her 79 years.