Women Artists through History

1. Women Artists through History

2. Where to begin?

3. How to become a woman artist I can point to a few striking characteristics of women artists generally: they all, almost without exception, were either the daughters of artist fathers, or generally later, in the 19th and 20th centuries, had a close personal connection with a stronger or more dominant male artistic personality. Neither of these character* tics is, of course, unusual for men artists, either, as we have indicated above in the case of artist fathers and sons: it is simply true almost without exception for their feminine counterparts, at least until quite recently. From the legendary sculptor Sabina von Steinbach, in the13th century, who, according to local tradition, was responsible for the South Portal groups on the Cathedral of Strasbourg, down to Rosa Bonheur the most renowned animal painter of the 19th century, and including such eminent women artists as Marietta Robusti (daughter of Tintoretto), Lavinia Fontana, Artemisia Gentileschi, Elizabeth Cheron, Mme. Vigee Lebrun, and Angelica Kauffmann--all, without exception, were the daughters of artists.

4. Art before the Renaissance Much work was largely anonymous We do have some artisans who signed their work, both men and women

5. Guda, Self-Portrait,(Homeliary) 12th Century

6. Claricia, Self-Portrait-Ger., Plaster, C.1200

7. Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614): Lavinia Fontana was born in Bologna, Italy, was the daughter of the artist Prospero Fontana who trained her. A painter of portraits and mythological works she was a prolific painter despite being the mother of eleven children. She was summoned by Pope Clement VIII where she painted The Martyrdom of St. Stephen for the basilicaaa of San PaoloFuori. She was the first woman to receive commissions for public paintings and was elected to the Roman Academy.

8. Lavinia Fontana (Italian, 1552-1614) Portrait of a Noblewoman, ca. 1580. Oil on canvas 45 ¼ x 35 ¼ in. National Museum of Women in the Arts

9. Sofonisba Anguissola Studied under two masters, and continued to paint after her marriage which was highly unusual She was friends with Michelangelo and court Painter to Phillip II She advised the young Flemish painter Van Dyck The image is one of her sisters and brother

10. Sofonisba Anguissola, Portrait of the Artist’s Sisters & Brothers

11. Judith Lester A follower of Frans Hals, Judith Lester’s work was often included as his work by early art historians (because women didn’t paint!) Later scholarship has separated her work, which focused mostly on images of men and women together in taverns, or playing music The image shows you the artist at work, and proclaims her status as a master, able to take in apprentices and fully equal with her male contemporaries.

12. Judith Leyster. Self-Portrait. ca. 1633

13. Artemisia Gentileschi

14. Artemisia Gentileschi (July 8, 1593 – c.1656) was an Italian Baroque painter, today considered one of the most accomplished painters in the generation after Caravaggio. In an era when female painters were not easily accepted by the artistic community or patrons, she was the first female painter to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence.

15. Gentileschi Daughter of a less skilled painter, Orazio (friend of Caravaggio) One of the few women painters of her day, internationally famous, bur felt she was discriminated against because she was a woman Her personal life was turbulent and seems to be reflected in her portrayal of herself as the biblical heroines she painted Her works are dramatic, like frozen moments in time, or a movie stills Like other skilled painters of the Baroque she uses light to enhance the story and communicate emotion Also typical of the Baroque style is the contorted poses of her figures.

16. Artemisia Gentileschi Self-Portrait (Allegory of Painting) 1630oil on canvas38 7/8 x 29 5/8 in.

17. Artemisia Gentileschi Susannah and the Elders 1610oil on canvas66 7/8 x 46 7/8 in.

18. Artemisia Gentileschi. Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes. ca. 1625

19. Angelica Kaufmann Her father was a painter Acquired friends in high places – Lady Wentworth - who introduces her to Sir Joshua Reynolds Becomes an accomplished history painter One of the establishing members of the Royal Academy (only two women – Mary Moser was the other)

20. Angelica Kauffmann Mother of the Gracchi ca. 1785oil on canvas3 ft. 4 in. x 4 ft. 2 in.

21. The Royal Academy

22. Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Lebrun Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Lebrun (1755-1842): Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Lebrun was born in Paris in 1755. She was perhaps the most successful woman painter of her time enjoying the patronage of Queen Marie-Antoinette as well as that of other European nobility. She painted many portraits of the ill-fated Marie-Anoinette including one of the queen and her children which was commissioned as a desperate effort to salvage the queen's bad reputation. Vigee-Lebrun left France just before the revolution but returned later to continue her career. Despite her royalist associations, she was able to garner continued acceptance as an artist by the post-revolutionary regime and to be elected to the Academie Royale.

23. Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun Self-Portrait 1790oil on canvas8 ft. 4 in. x 6 ft. 9 in.

25. AdélaideLabille-Guiard Self-Portrait with Two Pupils 1785oil on canvas6 ft. 11 in. x 4 ft. 11 1/2 in.

26. Rosa Bonheur Her father, Raymond Bonheur who was landscape artist of some note himself, continued her artistic education. He was also to play a major role in shaping her feminist and radical ideas regarding androgyny and clothing. Her works are mainly of animals. She maintained her own menagerie of animals and honed her animal anatomy skills by visiting slaughter houses. By the age of thirty, Bonheur was already a critical success. She became the first woman ever to win the Legion of Honor Bonheur was in many ways a woman much ahead of her times: besides wearing pants, she cut her hair short, smoked, and rode astride . At a time when most women were financially dependent, Bonheur earned her own living and became wealthy enough to own a chateau in Fontainebleu.

27. Rosa Bonheur, The Horse Fair, 1853-5

28. Plowing in Nivernais, 1850

29. Marie Bracquemond In 1860, Marie Bracquemond, a promising young student of the celebrated painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, noted, "The severity of Monsieur Ingres frightened me... because he doubted the courage and perseverance of a woman in the field of painting... He would assign to them only the painting of flowers, of fruits, of still lifes, portraits and genre scenes." Although she was speaking of her experience within Ingres's private Parisian studio, Bracquemond's observations reflect the general limitations of women's artistic training in France throughout most of the nineteenth century.

31. In a letter to the mother of Edma and Berthe Morisot, their private art instructor expressed the implications of the two girls' burgeoning talents: "Considering the characters of your daughters, my teaching will not endow them with minor drawing room accomplishments, they will become painters. Do you realize what this means? In the upper-class milieu to which you belong, this will be revolutionary, I might say almost catastrophic." While amateur talents in drawing and watercolor were encouraged as part of a good bourgeois education, professional careers for women who did not need to work were considered detrimental as they were thought to divert women from their prescribed roles as wives and mothers.

32. Young Woman Seated on a Sofa, ca. 1879Berthe Morisot

33. Cassatt was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, which is now part of Pittsburgh. She was born into favorable circumstances: her father, Robert Simpson Cassat (later Cassatt), was a successful stockbroker and land speculator, and her mother, Katherine Kelso Johnston, came from a banking family. Even though her family objected to her becoming a professional artist, Cassatt began studying painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the early age of fifteen, and continued her studies during the years of the American Civil War Even though her family objected to her becoming a professional artist, Cassatt began studying painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the early age of fifteen, and continued her studies during the years of the American Civil War

34. The Cup of Tea, ca. 1879 & Mother and Child (The Oval Mirror), ca. 1889Mary Cassatt

35. Mary Cassatt. The Child’s Bath. 1893

36. Too many women Arts & Crafts and the women’s movement

37. Women were the leaders in applying Arts and Crafts principles to social reform, creating many organizations to teach or market pottery and other media for philanthropic purposes.

38. Revived interest in craft led to a proliferation of art potteries, concentrated in Ohio, Massachusetts and New York. Ohio led the country in the art pottery revolution, beginning in the progressive city of Cincinnati. There, Maria Longworth Nichols experimented with ceramic paints as early as 1871. The following year, a china painting class was offered to society women at the Cincinnati School of Art. Of the class, one student remarked that "tidings of the veritable renaissance in England under the leadership of William Morris and his associates had reached this country." Mrs. Nichols continued her investigation of clay and established Rookwood Pottery in 1880. Rookwood was at the forefront of ceramic development in this country; in 1883 it introduced its velvety-glazed "Rookwood Standard," created through the innovative use of spray apparatus.

39. In the United States, as women sought to better their education and employment opportunities, the suffrage movement became inseparably intertwined with the Arts and Crafts movement. Women had a profound influence on the spread of Morris ideals. That both the Rhode Island School of Design and the Cincinnati School of Design were founded by women is hardly coincidental.

40. Paul Revere Pottery The vision that culminated in the Paul Revere Pottery was a combination of the talents and passions of a number of progressive Bostonians in the first decade of the 20th century. A young librarian named Edith Guerrier worked at the Boston North End branch in 1905. The North End was gritty, crowded with Jewish and Italian immigrants, and poor. Miss Guerrier established the Saturday Evening Club with the support of Mrs. James Storrow to provide girls and young women with opportunities sorely lacking in their day to day lives.

43. Newcomb Pottery The emergence of new design schools afforded other opportunities for women, particularly at places such as Newcomb College in New Orleans, which had established a pottery to provide employment for young women who had trained in its art program. The Arts and Crafts commitment to decoration inspired by local plants and flowers is clearly seen in Newcomb pottery, where the primary motifs are magnolias, live oaks, hanging moss, and cypress trees.

45. Candace Wheeler In 1877, Candace Wheeler founded the New York Society of Decorative Art, a combination school, workshop, exhibition gallery, and sales outlet.   Many women had grown up with the practice of needlepoint and other craft work, and she believed that, if properly trained, this work was good enough for sale, and not as an act of charity. 

46. Famous friends (?) The Society of Decorative Art offered “the beginning of self help among educated women.”  By selling painted china or little works of embroidery, women were able to earn their own wages and broaden their lives without making themselves societal outcasts, for the work they were doing remained appropriate, and did not compromise their femininity.   Tiffany taught at her school In 1879, frustrated with his teaching post at the Society, Tiffany resigned, and invited Wheeler to join him in creating a professional decorating firm, which would become (after several incarnations, including the Louis C. Tiffany Co. and Tiffany & Wheeler,) Louis C. Tiffany and Company Associated Artists.   The firm was a partnership between four artists who each controlled their own separate departments: Louis C. Tiffany was in charge of glass, Lockwood de Forest had carvings and wood decoration, Samuel Colman was the color man, and Wheeler’s field was, of course, textiles and embroideries.

47. Wheeler went on to establish her own firm, also called Associated Artists.  This new Associated Artists was more directly interested in moving commercial art in a direction that would benefit women.  As Amelia Peck wrote, “Designing textiles and encouraging women in their quest to become self-supporting professional designers and artists would be the two most important activities of Associated Artists.”   The firm would find a fair amount of success and win numerous awards;  its most visible commission would be to decorate the Woman’s Building for the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago.