Women artists

Ancient references by Homer, Cicero, and Virgil mention the prominent roles of women in textiles, poetry, music, and other cultural activities, without discussion of individual artists.

One of the few named women painters who might have worked in Ancient Greece,[13][14] she was reputed to have produced a painting of the battle of Issus which hung in the Temple of Peace during the time of Vespasian.

She wrote The Divine Works of a Simple Man, The Meritorious Life, sixty-five hymns, a miracle play, and a long treatise of nine books on the different natures of trees, plants, animals, birds, fish, minerals, and metals.

Her lament for her beloved son which immortalized the sorrow of all mothers mourning their deceased children, was carved on the back of the diptych, (two-panelled icon representing a Virgin and Child) which Teodosije, Bishop of Serres, had presented as a gift to the infant Uglješa at his baptism.

Artists from the Renaissance era include Sofonisba Anguissola, Lucia Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, Fede Galizia, Diana Scultori Ghisi, Caterina van Hemessen, Esther Inglis, Barbara Longhi, Maria Ormani, Marietta Robusti (daughter of Tintoretto), Properzia de' Rossi, Levina Teerlinc, Mayken Verhulst, and St. Catherine of Bologna (Caterina dei Vigri).

One such shift came from the Counter-Reformation reacting against Protestantism and giving rise to a move toward humanism, a philosophy affirming the dignity of all people, that became central to Renaissance thinking and helped raise the status of women.

In addition to conventional subject matter, artists such as Lavinia Fontana and Caterina van Hemessen began to depict themselves in self-portraits, not just as painters but also as musicians and scholars, thereby highlighting their well-rounded education.

But for the groundbreaking actions of American philanthropist Jane Fortune (died 2018) and Florence-based author Linda Falcone and their organisation, Advancing Women Artists Foundation, the roll might have gathered more dust.

[6] Four years of painstaking restoration by a female led team, reveals the brilliance of the 16th-century, self-taught, suor Plautilla Nelli, a nun, and only Renaissance woman known to have painted the Last Supper.

[34] During her teens a connection was established between the Leysters and historical painter Frans Peters de Grebber, who came into contact with her parents for the love of their embroidered designed fabrics.

Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun used her experience in portraiture to create an allegorical scene, Peace Bringing Back Plenty, which she classified as a history painting and used as her grounds for admittance into the Academy.

Anna Boch was a Post-Impressionist painter, as was Laura Muntz Lyall, who exhibited at the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, and then in 1894 as part of the Société des artistes français in Paris.

[41] After her death, her Coade stoneware was used for refurbishments to Buckingham Palace and by noted sculptors in their monumental work, such as William Frederick Woodington's South Bank Lion (1837) on Westminster Bridge, London.

[44] While in the West, there were: Julie Charpentier, Elisabet Ney, Helene Bertaux, Fenia Chertkoff, Sarah Fisher Ames, Helena Unierzyska (daughter of Jan Matejko), Blanche Moria, Angelina Beloff, Anna Golubkina, Margaret Giles (also a Medalist), Camille Claudel, Enid Yandell and Edmonia Lewis.

[51] Notable women artists from this period include: Elene Akhvlediani, Hannelore Baron, Vanessa Bell, Lee Bontecou, Louise Bourgeois, Romaine Brooks, Emily Carr, Leonora Carrington, Mary Cassatt, Elizabeth Catlett, Camille Claudel, Sonia Delaunay, Marthe Donas, Joan Eardley, Marisol Escobar, Dulah Marie Evans, Audrey Flack, Mary Frank, Helen Frankenthaler, Elisabeth Frink, Wilhelmina Weber Furlong, Françoise Gilot, Natalia Goncharova, Nancy Graves, Grace Hartigan, Barbara Hepworth, Eva Hesse, Sigrid Hjertén, Hannah Höch, Frances Hodgkins, Malvina Hoffman, Irma Hünerfauth, Margaret Ponce Israel, Gwen John, Elaine de Kooning, Käthe Kollwitz, Lee Krasner, Frida Kahlo, Hilma af Klint, Laura Knight, Barbara Kruger, Marie Laurencin, Tamara de Lempicka, Séraphine Louis, Dora Maar, Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, Maruja Mallo, Agnes Martin, Ana Mendieta, Joan Mitchell, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Gabriele Münter, Alice Neel, Louise Nevelson, Georgia O'Keeffe, Betty Parsons, Aniela Pawlikowska, Orovida Camille Pissarro, Irene Rice Pereira, Paula Rego, Bridget Riley, Verónica Ruiz de Velasco, Anne Ryan, Charlotte Salomon, Augusta Savage, Zofia Stryjeńska, Zinaida Serebriakova, Sarai Sherman, Henrietta Shore, Sr. Maria Stanisia, Marjorie Strider, Carrie Sweetser, Annie Louisa Swynnerton, Franciszka Themerson, Suzanne Valadon, Remedios Varo, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Nellie Walker, Marianne von Werefkin and Ogura Yuki.

She moved abroad to study at the Académie Julian and spent much of her life in France and Rome where the more liberal attitudes allowed her to express a broad range of compositional subjects.

In 1927, Dod Procter's painting Morning was voted Picture of the Year in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, and bought by the Daily Mail for the Tate gallery.

Other women to break through the glass ceiling have included: Eve Arnold, Marilyn Silverstone and Inge Morath of Magnum, Daphne Zileri, Anya Teixeira, Elsa Thiemann, Sabine Weiss and Xyza Cruz Bacani.

[67] On a larger scale, among theatrical designers the following have been notable: Elizabeth Polunin, Doris Zinkeisen, Adele Änggård, Kathleen Ankers, Madeleine Arbour, Marta Becket, Maria Björnson, Madeleine Boyd, Gladys Calthrop, Marie Anne Chiment, Millia Davenport, Kirsten Dehlholm, Victorina Durán, Lauren Elder, Heidi Ettinger, Soutra Gilmour, Rachel Hauck, Marjorie B. Kellogg, Adrianne Lobel, Anna Louizos, Elaine J. McCarthy, Elizabeth Montgomery, Armande Oswald, Natacha Rambova, Kia Steave-Dickerson, Karen TenEyck, Donyale Werle Mary Carroll Nelson founded the Society of Layerists in Multi-Media (SLMM), whose artist members follow in the tradition of Emil Bisttram and the Transcendental Painting Group, as well as Morris Graves of the Pacific Northwest Visionary Art School.

Some art historians such as Daphne Haldin have attempted to redress the balance of male-focused histories by compiling lists of women artists, though many of these efforts remain unpublished.

The exhibition, Inside the Visible, that travelled from the ICA in Boston to the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, the Whitechapel in London and the Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth, included artists' works from the 1930s through the 1990s featuring Claude Cahun, Louise Bourgeois, Bracha Ettinger, Agnes Martin, Carrie Mae Weems, Charlotte Salomon, Eva Hesse, Nancy Spero, Francesca Woodman, Lygia Clark, Mona Hatoum and the acclaimed Magdalena Abakanowicz who used textiles in her installations,[69] among others.

[72] Michna finds that challenging artistic practices which exclude women exposes the politics and gender bias of traditional art and helps to breakdown class-based and patriarchal divisions.

The re-emergence in the late 19th-century of the creation of ceramic art objects in Japan and Europe has become known as Studio pottery, although it encompasses sculpture and also tesserae, the mosaic cubes which go back to Persia in the third millennium BCE.

[10] Leading trends in British studio pottery in the 20th century are represented by both men and women: Bernard Leach, William Staite Murray, Dora Billington, Lucie Rie and Hans Coper.

Worldwide and European artists coming to the United States have contributed to the public appreciation of ceramics as art, and included Marguerite Wildenhain, Maija Grotell, Susi Singer and Gertrude and Otto Natzler.

They are the Batwa, among the most marginalised people in the world, whose womenfolk (and the occasional man) continue the centuries-old custom of making pottery which has been used as barter with the peasants and pastoralists of the region.

A book by that name was published in 2006, featuring major art historians such as Linda Nochlin analysing prominent women artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Yvonne Rainer, Bracha Ettinger, Sally Mann, Eva Hesse, Rachel Whiteread and Rosemarie Trockel.

Internationally prominent contemporary artists who are women also include Magdalena Abakanowicz, Marina Abramović, Jaroslava Brychtova, Lynda Benglis, Lee Bul, Sophie Calle, Janet Cardiff, Li Chevalier, Marlene Dumas, Orshi Drozdik, Marisol Escobar, Bettina Heinen-Ayech, Jenny Holzer, Runa Islam, Chantal Joffe, Yayoi Kusama, Karen Kilimnik, Sarah Lucas, Neith Nevelson, Yoko Ono, Tanja Ostojić, Jenny Saville, Carolee Schneeman, Cindy Sherman, Shazia Sikander, Lorna Simpson, Lisa Steele, Stella Vine, Kara Walker, Rebecca Warren, Bettina Werner and Susan Dorothea White.

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama's paintings, collages, soft sculptures, performance art and environmental installations all share an obsession with repetition, pattern, and accumulation.

[87] Women artists have often been mis-characterized in historical accounts, both intentionally and unintentionally; such misrepresentations have often been dictated by the socio-political mores of the given era and the male domination of the art world.