Katy Hessel’s The Story of Art Without Men covers artwork from 1500 to the present and introduces the reader to Artemisia Gentileschi, Frida Kahlo, Wilma af Kline, Tracey Amin, Kara Walker, Elisabetta Sirani, Marie Denise Villers, Lady Butler, and dozens of women artists.
I liked the book’s traditional chronological approach to women artists over the centuries. Hessel points out a number of “firsts” achieved by women artists: Lavinia Fontana is considered to be the first woman in Western art to paint female nudes in 1595; Alma Thomas is the first African American woman to achieve a solo exhibition at the Whitney in 1972; “A Lesbian Show” was the first all-lesbian art show in the U.S. (held in New York City in 1978).
If you’re interested in Art History, you’ll love Katy Hessel’s The Story of Art Without Men. With over 300 images, this book is a feast for the eyes! Do you have a favorite female artist? GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Part one: paving the way c.1500-c.1900
Chapter 1: Painting herself into the canon — 19
Chapter 2: Looking to a heroic past — 52
Chapter 3: From Realism to Spiritualism — 69
Part two: what made art modern c.1870-c.1950
Chapter 4: War, identity and the Paris avant-garde — 110
Chapter 5: The aftermath of the First World War — 156
Chapter 6: Modernism in the Americas — 188
Chapter 7: War and the rise of new methods and media — 208
Part three: postwar women c.1949-c.1970
Chapter 8: The great era of experimentalism — 236
Chapter 9: Political change and new abstractions — 262
Chapter 10: The body — 298
Chapter 11: Weaving new traditions — 312
Part four: taking ownership 1970-2000
Chapter 12: The era of feminism — 327
Chapter 13: The 1980s — 355
Chapter 14: The 1990s — 374
Chapter 15: Radical change in Britain — 392
Part five: still writing 2000-present
Chapter 16: Decolonising narratives and reworking traditions — 414
Chapter 17: Figuration in the twenty-first century — 432
Chapter 18: The 2020s — 452
Glossary — 460
Timeline —462
List of Illustrations and Photographic Acknowledgements — 500
Acknowledgements — 505
About the Author — 507
INDEX — 508
Do I? I have been rather gender-blind in visual arts of the non-narrative kind. Louise Bougeois, Helen Frankenthaler, Diane Dillon (even if she was so often if not almost exclusively working with late husband Leo) come to mind. I admire the Guerilla Girls. The film made me aware of Camille Claudel.
https://youtu.be/POmH27Y2N_k –Hessel on CBS
Todd, I was a big fan of fantasy artist Rowena Morrill.
It is appalling to me how few female artists I can name. And mostly ones I can think of are photographers.
Patti, that’s why Katy Hessel wrote this book. We all need to be aware of the great women artists that have been ignored.
I’ve always been interested in the story of Vigee Le Brun, the artist best known for painting cozy domestic scenes of Marie Antoinette and her children. Le Brun was one of the first artists to include informal poses, smiles, and parted lips/visible teeth in her portraits. She led an interesting life—profligate husband, caught up in the French Revolution, long stays in Russia and England—and dealt with a huge amount of public criticism because she was a woman in what was perceived as a man’s field. However, she was incredibly prolific and rarely let anything prevent her from painting. And yet, she’s far less well-known than many of her male contemporaries.
Deb, I’ll have to explore Vigee Le Brun’s work in more detail. For centuries, women artists and their works have not been recognized.
In any category – and this is no exception – I find it hard to pick one favorite. Of course, I must admit that I don’t really know all that many women artists. In the art history course I took over 50 years ago, we did cover Artemisia Gentileschi, who has a great name for an artist. But how many women artists could I name? Not a lot come immediately to mind. Frida Kahlo, of course, Mary Cassatt, Grandma Moses, Rosa Bonheur, Berthe Morisot, Georgia O’Keeffe, Lee Krasner, Louise Nevelson, come to mind.
Jeff, Katie and Diane are big fans of Georgia O’Keeffe’s work. Katy Hessel’s book just proves how many great women artists passed under the Cultural Radar for decades!
There is the National Museum of Women in the Arts in DC, which we have supported with membership money at times, but have never actually gone to.
The Baltimore Museum of Art will have an exhibit in October called Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400-1800. I imagine we’ll get to that, as we live just two miles from that museum.
Jeff, I’m hoping more local museums feature more women artists in the months ahead.
Favorite female artist: Elizabeth Thompson! Her “Scotland Forever” is a timeless masterpiece!