WOMEN IN ART/ A PARTIAL LIST

WOMEN IN ART                     WOMEN IN ART

I have compiled a partial list of women in art.  I have included women from Western, Asian, and Middle Art.  As we go along I will add more women to this list.  What one finds in art is that an artist can be important at one time and lose favor at another.  Who will eventually stand for time is yet to be seen.  I have included some artists I know and have heard speak at National and State Art Education Conferences, as well, or whose art fascinates me.  You may have your own list and you may want to add to this compilation.  I welcome your suggestions of interesting women artists doing interesting art.  I am also adding a you tube video here for you on 500 years of Women in Art, that if you have not seen, I believe you will thoroughly enjoy.  
All the names of the artists are highlighted and clickable.  They will take you to a link that will provide you with more information.
All the photography images come from google image and are only for the purpose of education and advocacy.
Click here to add your suggestions to list of Women Artists   Rabbits5@aol.com

LEE KRASNER

BARBARA KRUGER                  

  

CINDY SHERMAN     

SHIRIN NESHAT                   

BERTHE MORISOT    

GEORGIA O'KEEFFE  

  

NIKI SAINT PHALLE     

       

FRIDA KAHLO       

         

EVA HESSE            

JENNY HOLZER                

MERET OPPENHEIM       

MARY CASSATT   

   

SANDY SKOGLUND     

    









NANCY GRAVES                

JUDY PFAFF      

                             








BETTY SAAR   

ELIZABETH CATLET         

YAYOI KUSAMA

Quote by Frida Kahlo

I was born a bitch.  I was born a painter. 
Frida Kahlo

The Aging of Women Artist

Louise Nevelson photo by Jack Mitchell and google image

The Aging of Women Artists became of interest to me when I brought home a film of Louise Nevelson(click) to review for a lesson I was preparing to teach.  My Mother watched it with me and was very moved by the film, as it showed an older Nevelson facing aging without fear.  Mom had been worry about her looks and wrinkles as she was approaching 80.  She declared to me, "Well, at least I can look interesting like her!"  The Arts are never easy for women.  They have to fight a male dominated art scene and fight with galleries and museums to show their work..that women's art is as inherently interesting as mens.  Like so many areas where there is gender bias, there are a lot of battles to be fought to make a difference and make things change. Georgia O'Keeffe, Lousie Nevelson, Louise Bourgoise, Lee Krasner,  Elizabeth Murray and Elizabeth Catlett are among the pioneers of strong women persevering in the art world.(click on each name for more information)

Georgia O'Keeffe    from google image

The American culture is so youth centered that we forget to treasure the beauty of aging.  I think each of these artists captured the onward march of aging with grace, dignity and courage, but they also did more they gathered in the process like art work in process and made it their own. These women were courageous from the beginning, but they lasted the race.  They did not listen to the naysayers and people who said it is a mans' world, they set their own pace and declared their own place.  I am not I saying they had no problems, ...they all struggled, they all had set backs, but the strength within and the belief in their own creative abilities gave them the fortitude to last out.  I think we owe them a tip of the hat and a look at their lives and art.  They were the Women Pioneers in Art and role models for women artists who came after them.  It is time in our culture to turn away from the worship of youth and beauty as the ultimate goals in life to honoring and treasuring what these women artist knew, surface beauty is not lasting and is superficial, but inner strength, fortitude, intelligence and skill is the stuff of life and courage.

So we honor you all for in your faces are the lines and wrinkles that make up a sculpture of character and accomplishment. 

 As in James Cameron's movie Avatar....WE SEE YOU!

Louise Bourgeoise from google image

Elizabeth Murray above and Elizabeth Catlett below 

google image

Lee Krazner  photo from google image

Lela Gordon, my Mother at 99
the woman who wanted to age well!

Georgia O'Keefe

from google image

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.  ~Georgia O'Keeffe

There is a story I remember from studying about Georgia O'Keeffe's life that always sticks with me because it was so funny yet gave insight into her life and personality. 

When Georgia was living at Abiqu(click)(Ghost Ranch)click New Mexico, she had a house keeper and cook that helped her with daily chores.  The house keeper recounts this tale. One day she had gone in town to the store to buy groceries and was walking back up to the house. 


It was a good distance from the road to the house and Georgia's beloved chow chow dogs were loose and running about.  The dogs were not well behaved and the house keeper said the only way she made it to the house safely was to throw out one steak at a time to the dogs...until she had thrown them all out, running full steam to the front door of the house for safety! 

Georgia O'Keefe  Abique  from google image

Georgia herself was an enigmatic and mysterious woman.  She was quite a character and not know to be easy to deal with.  Her time at Abiqu lengthened and lengthen until she lived their full time.  At first Stiglitz(click), her husband, would come, but they became more distant and he lived on the East coast and she in New Mexico.  I think we will take an in-depth look at her varied and interesting life in another post.  She is an artist that takes time to understand and know.  

Meret Oppenheim


"One is used to artists living a life that suits them and to citizens turning a blind eye to this, 
But when a woman does the same.
They all open their eyes."

Meret Oppenheim                                                                                                      from google image

I have always loved Meret's work.  I will tell you a story, that if you went to art school, you may have had a similar experience.  When I was studying art at the university I took clay and sculpture the same semester with different professors.  It was the late 60's early 70's at a time when we were also studying the latest art out of New York. Influenced by the new art I was observing from NYC  I made a large pot in ceramics with holes and spikes beside the holes. I lined the inside with fur...the idea being the push pull of wanting to touch. But the spikes added danger or caution to the desire to touch.  Well, a big argument started between the clay professor who said it wasn't clay take it to sculpture class and the sculpture professor said it wasn't sculpture, take it to clay class.  I still think it was a good piece and I was just ahead of my time!!!

A Woman Artist Even My Mother Could Love/Strong Women in Art

Louise Nevelson 

I taught art in public schools for many years.  I always tried to find interesting ways to teach children about art history. I had to make art history come alive for them.  I brought home videos to review for class, one of those was of Louise Nevelson as an older artists. 

My Mother, who was also aging and worried about her wrinkles, was captivated by Nevelson's life and looks.  She told me when she got older she could at least look as interesting as Louise Nevelson! 

Louise Nevelson/google image

Louise was born in 1889 in Russia not long before my Mothers birth in 1913.  Women born in a generation of war, depression and strife.  Louise went to the art student league and studied art.  She later married and was expected to be a good wife who moved in her husbands world of socialites.  It was not a world she could thrive in, she left her husband with her young son Myron and went back to New York City.  It was there something interesting happened....one of those odd things in life that lead to amazing things later...she and her son wandered the streets of New York collecting wood for heat.  The wood was not a log, or wood from a forest, but wood from old buildings and wood that had been worked or crafted for use.  That very wood would give Louise the idea for her wood collages later in her career and big her signature work of her life!  

Wood Collage Sculpture by Louise Nevelson     google image

I think it is difficult for us to think of the tenacity and strength it took for this woman, in an era when women were not allowed to do much, still succeeded and made her way. She challenged the idea of what women were allowed to paint and what society dictated women could do.  The following excerpt is from Wikapedia about her role in the women's movement. As you read through this you will see the sexism she dealt with in her life and the art world.  


"Louise Nevelson has been a fundamental key in the feminist art movement. 

Credited with triggering the examination of femininity in art, Nevelson challenged the vision of what type of art women would be creating with her dark, masculine and totem-like artworks.^[1] Nevelson believed that art reflected the individual, not "masculine-feminine labels", and chose to take on her role as an artist, not specifically a female artist.^[25] Reviews of Nevelson's works in the 1940s wrote her off as just a woman artist. A reviewer of her 1941 exhibition at Nierendorf Gallery stated: "We learned the ar

tist is a woman, in time to check our enthusiasm. Had it been otherwise, we might have hailed these sculptural expressions as by surely a great figure among moderns." Another review was similar in its sexism: "Nevelson is a sculptor; she comes from Portland, Maine. You'll deny both these facts and you might even insist Nevelson is a man, when you see her Portraits in Paint, showing this month at the Nierendorf Gallery."^[26]

Even with her influence upon future generations of feminist artists, Nevelson's opinion of discrimination within the art world bordered on the belief that artists who were not gaining success based on gender suffered from a lack of confidence. When asked by Feminist Art Journal if she suffered from sexism within the art world, Nevelson replied "I am a woman's liberation."^[22]"

Quotes on Art by Georgia O'Keeffe/Woman Artists

In this era of assault on women and women's rights I think it is essential to look at strong and accomplished women and what they contribute to our world.  Georgia O'Keeffe is certainly a role  model for a strong woman and accomplish artist. Poppies by  Georgia O'Keffe  from google image Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.
To create one's own world in any of the arts takes courage.
Still - in a way - nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.
One day seven years ago I found myself saying to myself -- I can't live where I want to -- I can't go where I want to go--I can't do what I want to -- I can't even say what I want to --....I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.
I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way-things I had no words for. Georgia O'Keeffe