Women in the art history field

Women were professionally active in the academic discipline of art history already in the nineteenth century and participated in the important shift early in the century that began involving an "emphatically corporeal visual subject", with Vernon Lee as a notable example.[1] It is argued that in the twentieth century women art historians (and curators), by choosing to study women artists, "dramatically" "increased their visibility".[2] In fact, women art historians are one of two groups (besides authors of high-school texbooks) "who say there have been great women artists" in the first place, according to the authors of a study of the representations of women artists in US textbooks.[3]

Elderly Lady (circa 1740), painting by Rosalba Carriera

Education and employment

In the United States professional, academic employment for women art historians was, by the early 1970s, not commensurate with the number of female PhDs in art history. Between 1960 and 1969, 30.1% of PhDs were awarded to women but those numbers increased significantly during that period: between 1960 and 1965 it was 27%, but between 1966 and 1967 it had gone up to 43.5%. But in 1970-1971, women art historians in art departments in the US made up 23.1% of instructors, 21.6% of assistant professors, 17.5% of associate professors, and only 11.1% of full professors. Comparison with the numbers for the same years for women in the languages, from a study done by the Modern Language Association, showed that "women in C.A.A. [College Art Association] professions face[d] rather more severe discrimination than women in M.L.A. fields". Similar tendencies were reported for salary and employment in studio teaching ("preliminary statistics...indicate that women artists receive a disproportionately small share of full-time studio jobs") and in museums ("particularly significant was a tendency to hire women with BAs to be secretaries and men with BAs for trainee programs which rapidly advanced them to more challenging positions).[4]

The history of women in the profession also suggests that art education itself has benefited from the increased presence of professional women art historians, since women students sometimes found it necessary to "redo" an education in which only a male point of view had been provided given. Paula Harper, "one of the first art historians to bring a feminist perspective to the study of painting and sculpture",[5] and Moira Roth shared the same experience of a "one-sided training", of feeling left out.[6] Discrimination against "women in college and university art departments and art museums" was, in the early 1970s, the immediate cause for the foundation of the Women's Caucus for Art (see below).[4]

In a statistical study of US employment among art faculties published in 1977, Sandra Packard notes that "in art departments women have been decreasing in number since the 1930s", and that the number of women in art faculties at institutes of higher education "decreas[ed] from 22% in 1963 to a low of 19.5% in 1974", and cites statistics suggesting that "although women are concentrated at the lower ranks in art faculties, they have more Ph.D. degrees than their male colleagues."[7]

Representation

The Women's Caucus for Art (WCA), a caucus for woman art historians, artists, and curators was founded at the 1972 meeting of the College Art Association (CAA), but re-established itself as an independent organization in 1974 after the CAA told them they could not use the CAA name anymore. According to Judith Brodsky, the CAA was, at the time, very much a male-dominated organization; she notes, though, in a 1977 article that the Caucus is given space and time at the annual CAA conference and in the CAA's journal, Art Journal.[8] A Lifetime Achievement Award was installed in 1979. The organization's objectives include "providing women with leadership opportunities and professional development" and "expanding networking and exhibition opportunities for women", and to that purpose publishes a newsletter, organizes sessions at conferences, and runs databases for "art and activism". In 2012 the WCA celebrated its 40th anniversary, and published a pamphlet for the annual awards ceremony that also includes a number of historical essays and reflections from the past presidents.[9]

Women art historians and feminist art theory

Feminist scholars have argued that the role of women art historians is connected to the study of women (as artists and as subjects) by art historians.[10] In 1974, Lise Vogel noted that there were few feminist art historians, and that women art historians in general seemed unwilling to ask "the more radical critiques" a feminist scholar should engage in.[11] In a 1998 essay, Corine Schleif argued that women and feminist scholars need to challenge the "Great Master" canon, and that they need to focus less on "style as evidence of authorship", seen as a traditionally masculine way of viewing the history of art, but rather on style as "one of many sites on the production of meaning". The topic of women scholars in art history is thus intricately connected with what scholars have called feminist art theory;[10] Kerry Freedman, for example, claims that "women art historians often interpret art that is about and by women differently than their male colleagues".[12] However, Carol Armstrong and Catherine de Zegher, in Women artists at the millennium (2006), argue that by the 1980s many "women art history scholars" had begun to think of feminism as irrelevant to the discipline.[13]

Notable women art historians

Name	Nationality	Birth date	Specialization	Profession
Maryan Ainsworth	American		14th, 15th and 16th century Northern European painting, particularly in Early Netherlandish painting	Kress-Beinecke Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) at the National Gallery in Washington DC.[14] She is also a curator of European paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Svetlana Alpers	American	b. 1936	Dutch Golden Age Painting	Art historian
Amalia Amaki	American	b. 1949	American art	Artist, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa from 2007 to 2012.[15]
Clementina Anstruther-Thomson	Scottish	1857–1921	Experimental aesthetics during the Victorian era	Author, art theorist, art critic
Paola Antonelli	Italian	b. 1963	Modern Art, design	Curator
Caroline Arscott	English		Victorian art, 19th century art	Art historian
Muqadamma Ashrafi	Tajikistani	1936–2013	Medieval arts and painting of Central Asia	Author, researcher
Dore Ashton	American	1928–2017	Modern Art, contemporary Art	Writer, professor, art critic
Pamela Askew	American	1925–1997	Domenico Fetti and Caravaggio	Professor
Nurhan Atasoy	Turkish	b. 1934	Ottoman art and architecture	Art historian
Erna Auerbach	German	1897–1975	Tudor period in England, feminist art	Author
Myrtilla Avery	American	1869–1959	Medieval art	Professor, a Monuments men, former chair of Department of Art at Wellesley College and director of the Farnsworth Art Museum from 1930–1937.
Barbara Baert	Belgian	b. 1967	Medieval iconology	Art historian
Mieke Bal	Dutch	b. 1946	Modern Art, Contemporary Art	Cultural theorist, video artist
Anna Banti	Italian	1895–1985	Italian Baroque, female artists	Writer, art historian, art critic, translator
Luisa Banti	Italian	1894–1978	Etruscan art	Archaeologist, art historian, writer
Ruth Barnes	British	b. 1956	Material culture, South and Southeast Asian Textiles	Art historian, curator
Wendy Beckett (aka 'Sister Wendy')	British	1930–2018	Catholic art	Art historian, Catholic nun
Ellen Beer	Swiss	1926–2004	Medieval art	Art historian, professor
Lottlisa Behling	German	1909–1989	Medieval art	Art historian, professor
Mary Berenson [16][17]	American	1864–1945	Italian Renaissance	Art historian, lecturer
Laurence Bertrand Dorléac	French	b. 1957	Modern and contemporary	Art historian, professor, curator
Margarete Bieber [18]	German	1879–1978	Theatre, sculpture, and clothing of ancient Rome and Greece	Art historian, professor
Gertrud Bing	German	1892–1964	Classical tradition	Director of the Warburg Institute[19]
Jean Sutherland Boggs [20]	Canadian	b. 1922	Nineteenth-century French art, Degas	Curator, art historian, and first female director of the National Gallery of Canada
Alice Boner	Swiss	1889–1981	Indian symbols in art history	Art historian focused on symbols in Indian art, also an artist
Evelina Borea	Italian	b. 1931	Italian art history	Author, curator
Norma Broude	American	b. 1941	Impressionism and feminist art history	Art historian, Author and emerita professor at American University
Frances Borzello	British		Feminist art history including; social history of art, female portraiture, and female nudes.	Author, scholar, feminist art critic
Adelyn Dohme Breeskin	American	1896–1986	Mary Cassatt	Curator, museum director, and art historian at Baltimore Museum of Art
Anita Brookner	English	b. 1936	Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Jacques-Louis David	Author, Slade professor of fine art at Cambridge University,[21] her early work focused on art history and later work was fiction novels
Lillian Browse	British	1906–2005	Augustus John, Edgar Degas, James Dickson Innes	Art dealer, art historian
Coosje van Bruggen	Dutch, American	1942–2009	Dutch avant-garde art	Artist, art historian[22]
Palma Bucarelli	Italian	1910–1998	avant-garde art	Director of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (GNAM) from 1942 to 1975, art critic
Anneliese Bulling	German, American	1900–2004	Sinologist, Chinese art and architecture	Art lecturer, art historian
Andrianna Campbell	American		Nineteenth and twentieth-century American art, Norman Lewis, Abstract Expressionism	Art historian, curator
Teresa Gisbert Carbonell	Bolivian	b. 1926	Andean art history	Art historian
Mary Ann Caws	American	b. 1933	Modern Art, contemporary art	Author, literary critic, art historian
Whitney Chadwick	American	b. 1943	Feminist art critic, contemporary art, modernism, Surrealism, gender and sexuality	Author, Professor Emerita at San Francisco State University
Betty Churcher	Australian	1931–2015		Art historian, first female director of the National Gallery of Australia[23]
Alessandra Comini	American	b. 1934	American women artists, Egon Schiele's portraiture	Academic lecturer, writer, a founder of the Women’s Caucus for Art
Mildred Constantine	American	1913–2008	Poster Art, graphic design	Art historian and curator at Museum of Modern Art in the 1950s and 1960s
Lynne Cooke	Australian		Modern art, contemporary art	Curator
Parisa Damandan	Iranian	b. 1967	20th century Iranian photography	Author, historian
Rocio de la Villa	Spanish	b. 1959	Spanish feminist art, contemporary art	Curator, university professor, president of Spanish Society of Aesthetics and Theory of the Arts,[24] a co-founders of Asociación de Mujeres en las Artes Visuales (MAV)
Anne d'Harnoncourt	American	1943–2008	Marcel Duchamp	Curator and director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Layla S. Diba	American		18th/19th-century and contemporary Persian art and the Qajar period	Iranian-American independent scholar and curator.
Elisabeth Dhanens	Belgian	1915–2014	Early Netherlandish painting	Heritage official
Leah Dickerman	American		Modern art, Contemporary art	Curator, art historian
Emilia Dilke	British	1840–1904	18th-century French art	Author, art historian, feminist and trade unionist.[25]
Sharada Dwivedi	Indian	1942–2012	Indian art and architecture history	Author of Indian and Mumbaiart and architecture history books
Joan Evans	British	1893–1977	French and English mediaeval art	Art historian
Margaret Henderson Floyd	American	1932–1997	Boston architecture including Henry Hobson Richardson, and Longfellow, Alden and Harlow.	Professor of Architectural History at Tufts University.
Marian Lopez Fernandez-Cao	Spanish	b. 1964	Spanish feminist art, contemporary art, and the works of Sonia Delaunay	University professor and researcher, former president of Asociación de Mujeres en las Artes Visuales (MAV)
Helen Gardner	American	1878–1946		Author of Art Through the Ages, an art history textbook
Mary Garrard	American	b. 1940	Italian Baroque art and feminist art history	Art historian, Author, emerita professor at American University
Antje von Graevenitz	German	b. 1940	20th and 21st-century art	Art historian, Art critic
Paula Harper	American	1930–2012	Feminist art, Camille Pissarro, contemporary art	Art historian, art critic, art lecturer, author
Ursula Hoff	German, Australian	1909–2005	Australian art, the works of Rembrandt	Scholar, academic, curator, author, critic, and lecturer. Deputy Director of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (1968–1973); London Adviser of the Felton Bequest (1975–83).
Meike Hoffmann	German	b. 1962	Die Brücke art movement, German art history	Provenance researcher, author
Michael Ann Holly	American		Historiography of Art History	Art historian
Alice Ming Wai Jim	Canadian		Contemporary Asian art, contemporary Asian Canadian art, remix culture	Professor, art historian, curator
Kellie Jones	American	b. 1959	African-American art and artists	Professor, curator, MacArthur Fellow
Amelia Jones	American	b. 1961	Dada, Feminist art, Performance art, Body art	Art historian, art theorist, curator, author, university professor, art critic
Ebba Koch	Austrian		Indian art history, Mughal-era (architecture, gardens, painting, applied arts), and connecting imperial symbolism.	A professor at the Institute of Art History in Vienna, Austria.
Charlotte Klonk	German		Modern Art, Contemporary Art, Museology	Art historian
Rosalind Krauss	American	b. 1941	20th-century painting, sculpture and photography	Author, associate editor of Artforum from 1971 to 1974, professor at Columbia University
Annette Kuhn	British	b. 1945	Feminist film theory, visual culture, cultural memory	Author, researcher, historian
Lynne Lawner	American		Renaissance	Author, scholar, historian with an emphasis on iconographical themes, the meaning of art, as well as social customs.
Annette Lemieux	American	b. 1957	Contemporary art	Professor, artist
Amelia Sarah Levetus	British, Austrian	1853–1938	Modern art	Author, cultural journalist
Samella Lewis	American	b. 1924	African-American art	Art historian, art critic, and artist (printmaker)
Lucy Lippard	American	b. 1937	Contemporary Art	Art critic, curator
Catherine Mason	British		Computer art,digital art	Art historian
Jennifer Montagu	British	b. 1931	Italian Baroque sculpture	Art historian
Doula Mouriki	Greek	1934–1991	Byzantinologist, Historian of Art	Professor
Claudia Müller-Ebeling	German	b. 1956	Healing arts, shamanism	Author
Laura Mulvey	English	b. 1941	Feminist film theory	feminist film theorist, professor at Birkbeck, University of London
Mika Natif	Israeli		Islamic painting: Central Asia, Iran, India, and the Mediterranean	Art historian
Sirarpie Der Nersessian	Armenian	1896–1989	Armenian and Byzantine studies	Art Historian and Museum Director
Linda Nochlin[26]	American	1931–2017	Feminist art history	Art historian
Elizabeth Norton	British		Tudor period, queens of England	Author, specializing in archaeology and anthropology.
Lotte Brand Philip	German	1910–1986
Griselda Pollock [27]	English, Canadian	b. 1949
Elizabeth Prettejohn	American	b. 1961	Victorian Art, Pre-Raphaelites	Art historian, Professor, curator, author
Arlene Raven	American	1944–2006	Feminist art movement in the United States	Art historian, art critic, and founder of the Los Angeles Woman's Building
Hilla Rebay	German, American	1890–1967	Modern art	Co-founder and first director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, abstract artist, art collector
Trina Robbins	American	b. 1938	History of comics	Artist and writer
Barbara Rose	American	1936–2020
Anda Rottenberg	Polish	b. 1944
Bente Scavenius	Danish	b. 1944	Danish art history	Independent scholar, art critic, and author
Johanna Schopenhauer [28]	German	1766–1838		Artist, author
Nada Shabout	American	b. 1962	Modern Iraqi art	Art historian
Kaja Silverman	American	b. 1947		Film theorist, art historian
Alessandra Silvestri-Levy	Brazilian		Producer and writer
Anna Spitzmüller	Austrian	1903-2001		Art historian, curator
Barbara Maria Stafford	American	b. 1941	Developments in imaging arts, optical sciences, and performance technologies	Art historian, researcher
Nina Howell Starr	American	1903–2000	American roadside attractions, American folk art, Outsider artists	Art historian, photographer, curator, art dealer[29]
Kate Steinitz [30]	German, American	1889–1975		Artist, art historian
Kristine Stiles	American	b. 1947		Art historian, curator
Margaret Stokes [31]	Irish	1832–1900		Antiquarian
Marilyn Stokstad [32]	American	1929–2016	Medieval and Spanish art	Art historian, professor, author
Z. S. Strother	American		20th and 21st-century Central and West African art history	Professor of African Art at Columbia University
Deborah Swallow	British	b. 1948	Indian art history	Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art since 2004.
Mary Hamilton Swindler [33]	American	1884–1967	Ancient classical painting	Archeologist, professor
Ann Temkin	American	b. 1959	Curator	American painting and sculpture
Dorothy Burr Thompson [34]	American	1900–2001
Erica Tietze-Conrat [35]	Austrian, American	1883–1958	Contemporary Viennese Art, Renaissance art, the Venetian school	Academic lecturer
Marjorie Tipping [36]	Australian	1917–2009		Historian
Jocelyn Toynbee [37]	English	1897–1985
Marcia Tucker [38]	American	1940–2006
Eleanor Tufts	American	1927–1991	American women artists, works by Luis Egidio Meléndez	Academic lecturer, writer
Rose Valland	French	1898–1980		Commission for the Recovery of Works of Art (during WWII)
Emily Vermeule	American	1928–2001	Ancient Greek art, Mycenaean culture	Classical scholar and archaeologist, professor at Harvard University.[39]
Cecylia Vetulani	Polish	1908–1980
Anne Wagner	American	b. 1949	Modern and contemporary art	Art historian, Professor emerita
Renate Wagner-Rieger [40]	Austrian	1921–1980	Architecture, historicism	Academic lecturer
Evelyn Welch	American	b. 1959	Renaissance and early modern	Art historian, professor
Edith Wharton [41]	American	1862–1937	Architecture	Writer
Margaret Whinney [42]	English	1897–1975	English art history	Academic lecturer
Sylvia Williams	American	1936–1996	African art	Curator, museum director
Sarah Wilson	English		Pierre Klossowski, Henri Matisse, Post-structuralism	Professor at Courtauld Institute, author
Rachel Wischnitzer	German	1885–1989	Jewish art history	architect, art historian
Margot Wittkower	German, American	1902–1995	Neo-Palladian Architecture, Italian Renaissance, Baroque	Writer, Interior Design
Joanna Woodall	British	b. 1956	Portraiture, Netherlandish Art
Mary Woodall	British	1901–1988	Thomas Gainsborough scholar	Museum director, curator
Frances Yates [43]	English	1899–1981	Renaissance
Stefania Zahorska	Polish	1890–1961		Polish prosaist
Hilde Zaloscer	Austrian	1903–1999	Coptic Art	Art historian, professor at University of Alexandria and Carleton University Ottawa.
Marie-Cécile Zinsou	French-Beninese	b. 1982	Contemporary art in Africa	President of Fondation Zinsou and in 2014 she found the Museum of Contemporary Art in Benin, the first museum of art in the country.
Rebecca Zorach	American	b. 1969	Early modern European, contemporary	Art historian, professor

References

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