Susan Weil

Photo courtesy Sundaram Tagore Gallery

Susan Weil, "Blue Chairs" (1997)

Photo courtesy Sundaram Tagore Gallery

Susan Weil, "Wooden Tree" (2005)

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Absolutely. When I was growing up in art, women artists were really overlooked. Also there was an age thing. At the time, you couldn’t be young and be worth your salt, so by the time I was of a respectable age, then you had to be young [laughs].

It’s complicated. I’ve always shown and I’ve had very good support from various people. I was well received in Sweden. My gallerist there, Anders Tornberg, loved my work and believed in my work and arranged for shows all over Europe.

Why do you think it is that you’ve had large, solo exhibitions and retrospectives in Europe and even North Dakota, yet it seems that New York museums still haven’t approached the idea of a retrospective—even though this is where you grew up?

It’s a leftover of these different prejudices. And also, if you’re not already a big famous deal by the time you’re 50, people think, “Well, if you’re not going to make it by now, you’re not going to make it.”

You worked for a period of about 20 years on a series of James Joyce drawings. Why that degree of depth of personal investment?

I had the opportunity to do three limited-edition books of Joyce with [publisher] Vincent Fitzgerald, so I got deep into reading because you can’t think of making images to words if you don’t know the words really well.

Joyce is such a powerful writer and I respond to that sliding into dreamland and the shifts in time. It’s so moving. I find his writing so meaningful and powerful, and I began a deeper study because I was invited to do these books. Then I took [his writings] into my studio with me and did a lot of the Joyce paintings.

I’ve heard you were exposed to Joyce early in your life.

Well, in my childhood, my father was a writer and he did read to us, unbelievably, from Finnegans Wake when I was a child [laughs]. But I loved it because I loved the music of it and I understood it was his passion and so I thought it was important to me. Of course I didn’t understand a word, being a child, but when I went back to it as an adult I felt that same kind of response to the music of it and the journey of Joyce. It really struck me.