PositiveThe Times Literary Supplement...[a] patient, revealing book ... Gabriel’s reliance on primary sources means that she can’t help but recapitulate the distinction between painting and living (if you are a woman). She is aware that this difference is a function of structural misogyny, but she is also fascinated by the results. This means, for example, that these five women’s relationships with men sometimes take precedence over the art in the book. One might wish the balance were different, but Gabriel has a point; it is uneasily instructive, sixty years on, to understand how these women negotiated their dedication to making art, the necessity of making a living, and the question of a relationship (as well as children). There are passages that are extremely moving in their quiet weighing of needs and desires ... Gabriel does not make a meal of it, however. She reports, and passes on. Though she began the book with a tendency to make portentous claims, her tone becomes easier as she progresses ... So much of this book is about continuing. Ninth Street Women ends up being a paean to painterly tenacity, to refusing to calling it quits. These women, summoned in chorus, fix us with their stare: yes, it is simple because it is the only thing to do.
