Life After All : Inclusive Art: Women Artists Are Gaining the Recognition They Deserve

Annie Renouf Whelpley, American, 1852-1928, Italian Women in the Weaving Room

Lois Mailou Jones, American, 1905-1998,
Les Fetiches

I remember an article in the early 1970s by an art historian, Linda Nochlin, asking: "Why Are There No Great Women Artists?” Nochlin detailed how for generations institutional attitudes and obstacles had prevented deserving female art-makers from being recognized in the Western art history canon. The same was true for African-Americans and people of color.

For women, recognition of their experiences, their voices, their talents, has come slowly. "Anonymous was a woman," Virginia Wolff proclaimed in a now-famous description. And they were, indeed, invisible, in every endeavor, in history, in art and music, science and sports.

Marion van Nieuwpoort, Dutch, 1950-2006.

The revival of the feminist movement in the early 1970s, which had been dormant since women won the right to vote in 1920, changed this. Slowly but surely. I saw it happen as I taught American women's history in the mid-1970s at the University of Toledo. I had so few books to use when I started the course, but then, after a few years, came an explosion of scholarship: more research, dissertations, articles and books, more public exposure and recognition. It was about time. It was a beginning.

Irene Klestova, RU, 1908-89

A few years later, in the mid-1980s, during a career-change adventure, I discovered the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. It was a relatively new museum, dedicated to showcasing the art of women from early history. The DC humanities council's office was a block from the Museum, so on my lunch hour one day I wandered in and stayed too long. It was an emotional experience that has stayed with me to this day. The building itself is beautiful, with salmon-colored marble grand staircases and lovely detail, a perfect surrounding for the art. The breadth and depth of the art was fascinating, the start of a collection that has since evolved and grown up to the present.

Gerda Wallander, Sweden, Street scene

As public awareness has grown, so too has the awareness of museums and cultural institutions. It's a very slow process. A few have begun to add women's art to their permanent collections, not just displaying it in an occasional exhibit here and there. I've been asking the Toledo Museum of Art to do the same.

The best news, and a model for other museums, came from the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) recently, which announced a year of exhibitions centered on female artists. Vision 2020. The BMA's campaign "to address diversity gaps" also led it to deaccession seven post-war works by male artists to raise money for acquiring more art by women and people of color. What a brave and pioneering action!

Antonietta Brandeis, Austria, 1848-1910
Venice, Grand Canale, now in jeopardy.
These artists renderings will be priceless
to remember it as it once was.

"The goal for this effort is to rebalance the scales and to acknowledge the ways in which women’s contributions still do not receive the scholarly examination, dialogue and public acclaim that they deserve,” said Christopher Bedford, the museum's director.

More museums should be researching the nature, extent and diversity of women's art from around the world. They would do well to examine the efforts of Christa Zaat, the curator of Female Artists in History Zaat wants "to lift the veil of silence on our collective culture by sharing and celebrating female artists of the past." She focuses on artists from around the world whose work has been out of sight, out of mind. She especially wants to resurrect deceased woman artists, to give them a public arena to showcase their works. Zaat is illuminating their artwork through visibility on the Internet. She's doing yoeman's work in organizing and cataloguing the art to make it accessible, an enormous undertaking. For a visual feast, check out https://www.facebook.com/female.artists.in.history/ and https://www.facebook.com/notes/female-artists-in-history/shortcut-to-the-indexes-of-female-artists-in-history/2286591328292410/

Serafina de Senlis Louis, French,
1864-1942

Step by step, women of achievement, in every field, are emerging from the shadows of obscurity into the light of day. And wonder of wonder, women's art is now being bought by art collectors, a measure of progress in the world of art.

Mimi Gross, American, Gertrude Stein and the
Secretaries, 1978

Nochlin's question has been answered in a lot of meaningful ways. There is still a long way to go, but the growing public recognition of women artists overtime is one of them.

Zainada Serebriakova, Russian

Some sources:
* http://ruthmillington.com/16-books-about-famous-female-artists-and-their-work/?fbclid=IwAR3zQsUkbZ7JiKJ2wRHuTdTHI_jsXs1__GqxQdzYt7_PWKyPSfxV-fH5x-s

* https://www.facebook.com/pg/female.artists.in.history/photos/?

* Note: In the same way the art of women over the ages has been brought into the light, so too were the works of women composers. Sandy Craig, a friend and neighbor in Toledo's Old West End, has collected the music of women composers since the early 1970s, and has one of the largest collections around. When I taught Women's History at UT, I invited Sandy to share some of that music with my classes. He was delighted to do it. It was an exciting time.
* Linda Nochlin, 1971, "Why are there no Great Women Artists?"

* https://hyperallergic.com/485669/city-of-women-female-artists-in-vienna-from-1900-to-1938-belvedere-museum-flying-high-women-artists-of-art-brut-bank-austria-kunstforum-wien/?

* https://www.culturetype.com/?f A great source of information on black artists.