Monica Sjöö
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Monica Sjöö (31 December 1938 – 8 August 2005) was a Swedish-born British-based painter, writer and
radical Radical may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics *Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change *Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and ...
anarcho/
eco-feminist Ecofeminism is a branch of feminism and political ecology. Ecofeminist thinkers draw on the concept of gender to analyse the relationships between humans and the natural world. The term was coined by the French writer Françoise d'Eaubonne in h ...
who was an early exponent of the
Goddess movement The Goddess movement includes spiritual beliefs or practices (chiefly Modern Paganism, Neopagan) which emerged predominantly in North America, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand in the 1970s. The movement grew as a reaction to perceptions ...
. Her books and paintings were foundational to the development of
feminist art Feminist art is a category of art associated with the late 1960s and 1970s feminist movement. Feminist art highlights the societal and political differences women experience within their lives. The hopeful gain from this form of art is to bri ...
in Britain, beginning at the time of the founding of the
women's liberation movement The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...
around 1970. Sjöö's most famous painting is '' God Giving Birth'' (1968), which depicts a woman giving birth and was inspired by Sjöö's religious view of motherhood; it sparked some protests from Christian groups in the 1970s. She wrote or co-wrote the manifesto ''Towards a Revolutionary Feminist Art'' (1971) and ''The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth'' (1987). Sjöö's art and writing became well-known outside of the UK, and throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s she corresponded with influential American writers, artists and pagans such as Jean and
Ruth Mountaingrove Ruth Mountaingrove (February 21, 1923 – December 18, 2016) was an American lesbian-feminist photographer, poet and musician, known for her photography documenting the lesbian land movement in Southern Oregon. Early life and education She w ...
,
Starhawk Starhawk (born Miriam Simos on June 17, 1951) is an American feminist and author. She is known as a theorist of feminist Neopaganism and ecofeminism. In 2013, she was listed in Watkins' ''Mind Body Spirit'' magazine as one of the 100 Most Spir ...
,
Zsuzsanna Budapest Zsuzsanna Emese Mokcsay (born 30 January 1940 in Budapest, Hungary) is a Hungarian author, activist, journalist, playwright and songwriter living in America who writes about feminist spirituality and Dianic Wicca under the pen name Zsuzsanna Buda ...
,
Shekhinah Mountainwater Shekhinah Mountainwater (October 24, 1938 - August 11, 2007) was a musician, author, teacher, priestess of Aphrodite, and a key figure in the Goddess movement. She is well known on the West Coast of the United States, west coast of the United Stat ...
,
Lucy Lippard Lucy Rowland Lippard (born April 14, 1937) is an American writer, art critic, activist, and curator. Lippard was among the first writers to argue for the " dematerialization" at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art. S ...
,
Alice Walker Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was aw ...
, and
Judy Chicago Judy Chicago (born Judith Sylvia Cohen; July 20, 1939) is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation images, which examine the role of women in history ...
.


Early life

Her parents were the Swedish painters Gustaf Arvid Sjöö (1902–1949) and Anna Harriet Rosander-Sjöö (1912–1965), who divorced when Sjöö was three years old. She left school and ran away from home when she was 16. Sjöö traveled Europe and held a variety of jobs: she worked in vineyards and as a nude model at art schools in Paris and Rome. She first came to Britain in the late 1950s, and eventually settled in Bristol where – except for a period in Wales in the early 1980s – she lived for the rest of her life.


Career

Sjöö was the main author of ''Towards a Revolutionary Feminist Art'' (1971) one of the first, and most militant,
feminist art Feminist art is a category of art associated with the late 1960s and 1970s feminist movement. Feminist art highlights the societal and political differences women experience within their lives. The hopeful gain from this form of art is to bri ...
manifestos. It was discussed widely in the feminist press, and ''The Guardian'' published an article in response. Sjöö wrote the original pamphlet that, with Barbara Mor's re-write and expansion,Monica Sjöö with Barbara Mor, ''The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth.'' San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1987. . would become the book ''The Great Cosmic Mother'' (1987). It covers women's ancient history and the
origin of religion The evolutionary origin of religions and religious behavior is a field of study related to evolutionary psychology, the origin of language and mythology, and cross-cultural comparison of the anthropology of religion. Some subjects of interes ...
, and is one of the first books to propose that humanity's earliest religious and cultural belief systems were created and first practised by women. It is currently in print and has been, and still is, a part of many
women's studies Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppress ...
,
mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...
and religious studies
syllabi A syllabus (; plural ''syllabuses'' or ''syllabi'') or specification is a document that communicates information about an academic course or class and defines expectations and responsibilities. It is generally an overview or summary of the curric ...
. Her research and writing helped uncover the hidden history of the
Goddess A goddess is a female deity. In many known cultures, goddesses are often linked with literal or metaphorical pregnancy or imagined feminine roles associated with how women and girls are perceived or expected to behave. This includes themes of s ...
''.'' Sjöö's successful use of
interdisciplinarity Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...
in her research has led to its acclaim within the
Goddess movement The Goddess movement includes spiritual beliefs or practices (chiefly Modern Paganism, Neopagan) which emerged predominantly in North America, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand in the 1970s. The movement grew as a reaction to perceptions ...
.


Early exhibitions

Sjöö's first exhibition was at the Gallery Karlsson in
Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
, Sweden in 1967. Having been a founder member of the Bristol
Women's Liberation The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...
group, in March 1971, she participated in the first "Women's Liberation Art Group" exhibition held at the Woodstock Gallery in London.
Margaret Harrison Margaret Harrison (born 1940 in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England) is an English feminist and artist whose work uses a variety of media and subject matter. Life and work Born in Yorkshire, when her father returned from the war, her family moved f ...
(1977) states that n one occasion in 1970 several of Sjöö's paintings were banned from being shown in St. Ives during the St. Ives festival (...) "Monica then wrote in Socialist Woman (Nottingham) proposing forming a group or alliance of women artists. This led to the formation of the Bristol Women's Art Group (...)".


Later exhibitions

Sjöö used imagery in her paintings which often references birth, the female body, and nature. All of these images were central to her beliefs regarding her "Cosmic Mother". She described herself as among the pioneers in this movement of reclaiming female divinity – along with many other writers, artists, poets, and thinkers. In her art, she attempted to "holistically express" her growing religious belief in the Great Mother as the cosmic spirit and generative force in the universe. This was a critical component of her artwork. She claimed to enter a "state" of being or of mind where knowledge was available from past, present, and future. Sjöö's most famous painting, '' God Giving Birth'' (1968), depicts a woman giving birth, and has the title text painted in red capitalized letters. It is an expression of Sjöö's spiritual journey at that time, inspired by her religious experience during the birth of her second son, and represents her perception of the Great Mother as the universal creator of cosmic life. The painting and its concept created some controversy among Christian groups in the 1970s; at a group exhibition in London in 1973, it led to Sjöö being reported to the police for
blasphemy Blasphemy is a speech crime and religious crime usually defined as an utterance that shows contempt, disrespects or insults a deity, an object considered sacred or something considered inviolable. Some religions regard blasphemy as a religiou ...
, although the case was not taken up by the court.


Beliefs

Sjöö's work and beliefs centered on her respect and care of the Goddess, or Mother Earth. The Goddess was "the beauty of the green earth, the life-giving waters, the consuming fires, the radiant moon, and the fiery sun". Sjöö's respect for nature and the environment was not mere belief but, for her, a spiritual truth. The Goddess / Earth is to be respected as the life giver. This respect is to be found not only in her imagery, but in two texts which chronicle her journey through the written word. Yet, these abstract beliefs were grounded with a firm foundation of action and activism. She was involved with the
anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
and
anti-Vietnam War Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War (before) or anti-Vietnam War movement (present) began with demonstrations in 1965 against the escalating role of the United States in the Vietnam War and grew into a broad social move ...
movements in Sweden in the 1960s and was active in the
women's movement The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for radical and liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality between men and women. Such iss ...
in Britain. Her political activism always grew out of her spiritual understanding of the earth as our living mother, similar to the beliefs of some Native American peoples. Sjöö was highly critical of many of the ideas and personages of the
New Age movement New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars consid ...
, including
Alice Bailey Alice Ann Bailey (June 16, 1880 – December 15, 1949) was a writer of more than twenty-four books on theosophical subjects, and was one of the first writers to use the term New Age. Bailey was born as Alice La Trobe-Bateman, in Manchest ...
, J. Z. Knight and "Ramtha", and
Gene Roddenberry Eugene Wesley Roddenberry Sr. (August 19, 1921 – October 24, 1991) was an American television screenwriter, producer, and creator of ''Star Trek: The Original Series'', its sequel spin-off series ''Star Trek: The Animated Series,'' and ''Sta ...
for some of the ideas behind ''
Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...
''.


Reception

Starhawk Starhawk (born Miriam Simos on June 17, 1951) is an American feminist and author. She is known as a theorist of feminist Neopaganism and ecofeminism. In 2013, she was listed in Watkins' ''Mind Body Spirit'' magazine as one of the 100 Most Spir ...
described Sjöö's work as paintings that "transformed ancient images and symbols into contemporary icons of female power." In 1976 Sjöö was the subject of a film documentary shown at the ICA and
NFT A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided, that is recorded in a blockchain, and that is used to certify authenticity and ownership. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the ...
.


Personal life

Sjöö believed heterosexuality was an unnatural state imposed by patriarchy, and later in her life she enjoyed a number of intimate romantic relationships with women. (In the context of the 1980 essay by
Adrienne Rich Adrienne Cecile Rich ( ; May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "th ...
, "
Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" is a 1980 essay by Adrienne Rich, which was also published in her 1986 book ''Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985'' as a part of the radical feminism Radical feminism is a per ...
".) However, after separating from her second husband, Andy Jubb, a composer, in the mid 1970s, Sjöö had an intense relationship with Keith Paton, a founder of the Alternative Socialist movement and, like Sjöö herself, a regular contributor to the alternative press, especially ''
Peace News ''Peace News'' (''PN'') is a pacifist magazine first published on 6 June 1936 to serve the peace movement in the United Kingdom. From later in 1936 to April 1961 it was the official paper of the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), and from 1990 to 2004 w ...
''. Under Sjöö's influence, Paton changed his name to Motherson (or Mothersson). Two of her three sons died young. In 1985 her youngest, Leify, was killed in front of her by an oncoming car at age 15. Her eldest son, Sean, died of
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), also known as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, is a group of blood cancers that includes all types of lymphomas except Hodgkin lymphomas. Symptoms include lymphadenopathy, enlarged lymph nodes, fever, night sweats, weight los ...
in 1987, aged 28. She claimed that his death was exacerbated by his experiences of rebirthing. Sjöö's grief at this double loss led first to an artistic paralysis akin to
writer's block Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author is either unable to produce new work or experiences a creative slowdown. Mike Rose found that this creative stall is not a result of commitment problems or th ...
, and then to artistic expression, in the shape of the painting ''My Sons in the Spirit World'' (1989). Sjöö died of cancer in 2005, aged 66.


Artwork


Exhibitions


Locations

Sjöö's art can be found in the Women's Art Collection at
Murray Edwards College Murray Edwards College is a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It was founded in 1954 as New Hall. In 2008, following a donation of £30 million by alumna Ros Edwards and her husband Steve, it was renamed Murray Edwar ...
in
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
and at the in
Skellefteå Skellefteå (, locally ) is a Cities in Sweden, city in Västerbotten County, Sweden. It is the seat of Skellefteå Municipality, which had 73,246 inhabitants in 2021. The city is historically industrial, with mining being a large part of that i ...
, Sweden. Some of her works are currently held in private collections of individuals: Sig Lonegren,
Alice Walker Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was aw ...
, and Genevieve Vaughan hold a few, while Maggie Parks holds most of her art. The Temple of Goddess Spirituality dedicated to
Sekhmet In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet ( or Sachmis (), also spelled Sakhmet, Sekhet, Sakhet among other spellings, cop, Ⲥⲁⲭⲙⲓ, Sakhmi), is a warrior goddess as well as goddess of healing. She is depicted as a lioness. Sekhmet is a solar de ...
holds ''Solar Lionheaded Sekhment of Primordial Fire'' (1992, oil on hardboard) where it is displayed in the living room of their guest house.


Written works


''The Great Cosmic Mother''

* (Original pamphlet) * * * * ** Excerpted in:


Books

* * * * * *


Chapters

* *—— (1983). "Aspects of the Great Mother" and "Creation". In Garcia, Jo; Maitland, Sara. ''Walking on the Water: Women Talk About Spirituality''. London: Virago. * * * * * *


Articles

* * * * * ** Excerpted in: (2001). In Robinson, Hilary. ''Feminism Art Theory: An Anthology 1968–2000''. Malden, MA: Blackwell. . ** (2015). In Robinson, Hilary. ''Feminism Art Theory: An Anthology 1968–2014''. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. . * * * * * * * * * *


Poems

* * *


Pamphlets

* Reprinted in "Towards a Revolutionary Feminist Art" *


References


Bibliography

* ''The Great Cosmic Mother - Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth'', co-authored with Barbara Mor, Harper & Row (1987) * ''The Norse Goddess'', Dor Dama Press, Meyn Mamvro Publications (2000) * ''Return of the Dark/Light Mother or New Age Armageddon? – Towards a Feminist Vision of the Future'', Plain View Press (1999) * ''Spiral Journey'', Antenna Publications (2019)


Further reading

* White, Rupert (2018) ''Monica Sjöö: Life and Letters 1958-2005'' Antenna Publications * * * * *


External links


Monica Sjöö's archived website

Archived papers
at the
University of Bristol , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...
Library Special Collections
Monica Sjöö's art in the New Hall Art Collection
o
Murray Edwards College
at th
University of Cambridge
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sjoo, Monica 1938 births 2005 deaths Deaths from cancer in England 20th-century Swedish painters 21st-century Swedish painters Swedish women painters Swedish feminists Swedish anarchists Feminist artists Radical feminists Ecofeminists Anarcha-feminists Swedish anti-war activists Anti–Vietnam War activists Swedish anti–nuclear weapons activists Swedish modern pagans Modern pagan artists Modern pagan writers Swedish emigrants to the United Kingdom