Females in the Art World

Perform a search for female artists and you will undoubtedly come up with the same select few that have been repeatedly gleaned from the generic pool amassed over the centuries: Frida Kahlo, Artemesia Gentileschi, Mary Cassatt, Georgia O'Keefe, Dorothea Lange...

         Granted, there are several deserving women due their rightful place in a long succesion of the "greats," but I cannot help but feel historians have been grasping at straws when compelled to come up with female masters, particularly within Western culture. Spend any length of time searching and you will continue to encounter the same predominately white male demographic.

        “Genius” according to our sense of the term did not even exist during the Renaissance. During Renaissance times, women lacked the entitlements of “genius,” that is, she was a women living in a patrilineal culture, devoid of many rights endowed to men. However, it was the idea of “ingenium” that separated her from the art world, as she was fated to lack wit, and those other “inherited mental and physical talents that helped an artist conceive and execute his projects.”

         In the 1900's you will notice a sudden shift and outpouring of works accomplished by the female minority, many of which were pushing their own feminist agenda. Not that there weren't any to begin with, but the long neglected line of existing work had suddenly been given credence and a voice. What was taking place during this time period? Women's suffrages, the Civil Rights movements, and the Voting Rights Acts.

        Much of this "voice" in the art world began to be heard due to Linda Nochlin's short essay written in 1971, "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" If you're interested in reading the full essay, you can do so here: http://davidrifkind.org/fiu/library_files/Linda%20Nochlin%20%20Why%20have%20there%20been%20no%20Great%20Women%20Artists.pdf In her essay, Nochlin claims, "the fault lies in our institutions and our education." It was not that women lacked the desire or aptitude for art, but rather the means of execution afforded to the male artist seeking a lasting career of pursuing the arts.


The  response to this realization brought about the feminist art movement, a calculated uncovering of historical works of art created by women and a resurgence of female representation in the art world. The term was coined by Judy Chicago and perhaps the piece of work that best embodied this movement was her "dinner party," an installation depicting noteworthy women, symbolic and historic, who had a lasting impact upon Western civilization.

Let's take a look at a subtler form of art, brought about by an original pioneer of photography, Anna Atkins. Being a scientist, Atkins' did not set out to develop a new form of art. She simply found a creative process to preserve accurate botanical illustrations using cyanotypes, or "sunprints" to record her findings. And isn't that essentially what art is? An artist is presented with a problem and sets out to find a creative solution. My theory? There were many more female artists hidden in the shadows of history disguised as scientists, as authors, as nurses... The "genius" has always been there, although we haven't yet discovered all of the places in which to look.