Louise Nevelson was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. Born in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire, she emigrated with her family to the United States in the early 20th century. Nevelson learned English at school, as she spoke Yiddish at home.
Romaine Brooks was an American painter who worked mostly in Paris and Capri. She specialized in portraiture and used a subdued tonal palette keyed to the color gray. Brooks ignored contemporary artistic trends such as Cubism and Fauvism, drawing on her own original aesthetic inspired by the works of Charles Conder, Walter Sickert, and James McNeill Whistler. Her subjects ranged from anonymous models to titled aristocrats. She is best known for her images of women in androgynous or masculine dress, including her self-portrait of 1923, which is her most widely reproduced work.
Properzia de' Rossi was a ground-breaking female Italian Renaissance sculptor and one of only four women to receive a biography in Vasari's Lives of the Artists.
Mary Leonora Carrington was a British-born, naturalized Mexican surrealist painter and novelist. She lived most of her adult life in Mexico City and was one of the last surviving participants in the surrealist movement of the 1930s. Carrington was also a founding member of the women's liberation movement in Mexico during the 1970s.
The absence of women from the canon of Western art has been a subject of inquiry and reconsideration since the early 1970s. Linda Nochlin's influential 1971 essay, "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?", examined the social and institutional barriers that blocked most women from entering artistic professions throughout history, prompted a new focus on women artists, their art and experiences, and contributed inspiration to the Feminist art movement. Although women artists have been involved in the making of art throughout history, their work, when compared to that of their male counterparts, has been often obfuscated, overlooked and undervalued. The Western canon has historically valued men's work over women's and attached gendered stereotypes to certain media, such as textile or fiber arts, to be primarily associated with women.
Ende is the first Spanish female manuscript illuminator to have her work documented through inscription: ENDE PINTRIX ET D(E)I AIUTRIX in the colophon of the Gerona Beatus. Most information about her comes down to the inscription in her artwork as there was no other record. Her lifetime is not known but can be assumed based on the inscription era in the Gerona Beatus: AD 975. The appellation of “dei aiutrix” alludes to the fact that she was probably a nun however it has been found what her foundation was. There are a number of hands discernible in the manuscripts. The chief scribe was a priest called Senior. Historians have also attributed elements of the manuscripts to Emetrius, whose style is attributable in comparison to an earlier signed work. However, based on painting style attributes, some theorists conclude that nearly all of the manuscript illustrations were completed by Ende.
Caterina or Catharina van Hemessen was a Flemish Renaissance painter. She is the earliest female Flemish painter for whom there is verifiable extant work. She is mainly known for a series of small-scale female portraits completed between the late 1540s and early 1550s and a few religious compositions.
Guda was a 12th-century nun and illuminator from Germany. She was one of the first woman to create a self-portrait in a manuscript, setting a precedent for female medieval illuminators and manuscript writers in the subsequent centuries.
Judith Jans Leyster was a Dutch Golden Age painter of genre works, portraits, and still lifes. Her work was highly regarded by her contemporaries, but largely forgotten after her death. Her entire oeuvre came to be attributed to Frans Hals or to her husband, Jan Miense Molenaer. In 1893, she was rediscovered and scholars began to attribute her works correctly.
Catherine of Bologna [Caterina de' Vigri] was an Italian Poor Clare, writer, teacher, mystic, artist, and saint. The patron saint of artists and against temptations, Catherine de' Vigri was venerated for nearly three centuries in her native Bologna before being formally canonized in 1712 by Pope Clement XI. Her feast day is 9 March.
Ellen Day Hale was an American Impressionist painter and printmaker from Boston. She studied art in Paris and during her adult life lived in Paris, London and Boston. She exhibited at the Paris Salon and the Royal Academy of Arts. Hale wrote the book History of Art: A Study of the Lives of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, and Albrecht Dürer and mentored the next generation of New England female artists, paving the way for widespread acceptance of female artists.
Herrad of Landsberg was a 12th-century Alsatian nun and abbess of Hohenburg Abbey in the Vosges mountains. She was known as the author of the pictorial encyclopedia Hortus deliciarum.
Florine Stettheimer was an American modernist painter, feminist, theatrical designer, poet, and salonnière.
Anastasia was a French illuminator of manuscripts, apparently specializing in the elaborate decorative borders that were increasingly fashionable, and landscape backgrounds. In her day most manuscripts were produced in commercial workshops, and many artists were women, probably especially those specializing in borders, which were often produced by a different artist from the main miniature image. The School of Paris was still the leading centre of illumination in this period, and Parisian works were widely distributed across Europe.
Susan Hannah Eakins was an American painter and photographer. Her works were first shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she was a student. She won the Mary Smith Prize there in 1879 and the Charles Toppan prize in 1882.
Autoportrait (Tamara in a Green Bugatti) is a self-portrait by the Polish artist Tamara de Lempicka, which she painted in Paris in 1928. It was commissioned by the German fashion magazine Die Dame for the cover of the magazine, to celebrate the independence of women. It is one of the best-known examples of Art Deco portrait painting.
Maria Ormani, was an Italian Augustinian Hermit nun-scribe and manuscript illustrator.
Dorothy Eugenia Miner was an American art historian, curator, and librarian who was a scholar of medieval art. Miner served as the first Keeper of Manuscripts at the Walters Art Museum from 1934 to 1973.
Frances Borzello is a British art historian and scholar, feminist art critic and author. Her work specializes in the social history of art, and includes study on the social position of European woman artists in the context of their society, the study of female self-portraits and female nudes. She authored the book Seeing Ourselves: Women's Self Portraits, which has been continuously published since 1998 and has 30 editions. Her work widely recognized as contribution to the fields of art history and women's studies.
Elisabeth Scepens was a Flemish bookmaker and artist.
