Grove Art: Thematic Guide
Women in the visual arts
Introduction
From ancient times to the present, women throughout the world have
participated in the visual arts in diverse and stimulating ways.
Whether as creators and innovators of numerous forms of artistic
expression, important patrons and collectors, or significant
contributors to the discipline of art history, women have been and
continue to be integral to the institution of art. For the most
part, however, traditional art history has systematically excluded
or masked women’s participation in the visual arts. Instead of
recognizing the social barriers to entry women faced when trying to
engage with the art world, the discipline has generally deemed
women’s contributions as non-existent or inferior to those of
men’s. As a gendered discourse, art history has also contributed to
the socially constructed sexual divisions of a patriarchal
society. The majority of art historians have celebrated and
privileged individual creativity as the apogee of artistic
greatness, which they then assigned as the property of only a
select masculinity. It took the intervention of feminism in the
late 20th century to begin to reframe the discipline. The feminist
engagement helped to move attention away from the idealization of
both the autonomous creative artist and the formal properties of
art works and towards new theoretical positions. Some of these
stances include challenging normative art historical periodizations
and ideas of stylistic development, understanding the social
investment in cultural values and recognizing the role of gender,
class and race in social formations. The feminist critique has also
helped to redress the almost complete neglect of women artists,
patrons and scholars by art history and to destabilize the
stereotyped views of art made by women.
Powerfully influential women include Hildegard of Bingen (philosopher and manuscript illuminator), Artemisia Gentileschi (painter), Gertrude Stein (writer and patron), Camille Claudel (sculptor), Cindy Sherman (photographer), Yoko Ono (performance artist and painter), Shahzia Sikander (painter) and Zaha Hadid (architect). Women vary across different cultures, ethnic identities, classes, sexual orientations, religions and time periods. While recognizing these differences and that the term women is not a uniform and essentialist category, this thematic guide offers a sampling of women’s important and exciting participation in the visual arts from a range of cultures and periods and in various mediums and forms.
Essays
- Heresies
- Feminism and art
- Woman’s Art Journal
- Woman’s Building
- Women and art history
- Women and collaborative practice
- Women and performance art
- Women and photography
- Women and transnationalism
- Women as patrons and collectors
Biographies
- Anguissola, Sofonisba
- Bourgeois, Louise
- Bonheur, Rosa
- Carrington, Leonora
- Cassatt, Mary
- Catherine de’ Medici, Queen of France
- Chicago, Judy
- Christine de Pizan
- Deacon, Destiny
- Gardner, Isabella Stewart
- Gentileschi, Artemesia
- Goncharova, Natal’ya
- Gray, Eileen
- Guggenheim, Peggy
- Hadid, Zaha
- Hammond, Harmony
- Hesse, Eva
- Hildegard of Bingen
- Höch, Hannah
- Kahlo, Frida
- Kauffman, Angelica
- Kimsooja [Kim Sooja]
- Kollwitz, Käthe
- Krasner, Lee
- Kruger, Barbara
- Labille-Guiard, Adélaïde
- Lewis, Edmonia
- Leyster, Judith
- Lin, Maya
- Mendieta, Ana
- Modersohn-Becker, Paula
- Morisot, Berthe
- Münter, Gabriele
- Mutu, Wangechi
- O’Keeffe, Georgia
- Ono, Yoko
- Pondick, Rona
- Rydingsvard, Ursula von
- Scott Brown, Denise
- Sherman, Cindy
- Sikander, Shahzia
- Stein, Gertrude
- Stepanova, Varvara
- Vigée Le Brun, Elisabeth-Louise
- Walker, Kara
- Yanagi, Miwa
