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Articles on Women artists

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Women donning gorilla masks pose in front of the original Guerilla Girls posters, as part of the ‘Disobedient Objects’ exhibition at the V&A in 2014. Eric Huybrechts/Wikimedia

Do women have to be naked to get into museums? Why female artists continue to be underrepresented in the art world

Notwithstanding the proliferation of exhibitions devoted to women, the question that feminists asked in the 1980s is more relevant than ever.
The Mill at Tidmarsh by English artist Dora Carrington, from Frances Spalding’s The Real and the Romantic: English Art Between the Two World Wars. Thames & Hudson

The best art books of 2022

A round up of some fascinating art tomes published this year, with a strong showing on women artists.
In the cases of both sculptor Camille Claudel (1864-1943) and Britney Spears, we see situations where talented women were declared mentally unfit after family interventions. (Wikimedia Commons/CP PICTURE ARCHIVE/Paul Chiasson)

Britney Spears’s conservatorship alludes to an older story of controlling women artists

Family members seeking to control women artists isn’t new. In the 1920s, doctors thought sculptor Camille Claudel could be released from the care of an asylum, but her family refused.
Clarice Beckett, Australia, 1887 - 1935, The red sunshade, 1932, Melbourne, oil on board; Gift of Alastair Hunter OAM and the late Tom Hunter in memory of Elizabeth through the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation 2019, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. AGSA

Clarice Beckett exhibition is a sensory appreciation of her magical moments in time

Known for her soft capturing of tonal shifts and poignant moments, painter Clarice Beckett’s legacy was almost lost to time and decay. Now her work is being celebrated in a major exhibition.
Detail of a collage work by Rosemary Karuga, Untitled, 1998. © Karuga family/Courtesy Red Hill Art Gallery

The importance of remembering Kenyan artist Rosemary Karuga

The first female student at the famous Makerere University art school, Karuga only began an art career when she retired at 60. She ended up showing internationally.
Pat Larter (England; Australia, b.1936, d.1996) Pat’s anger 1992. acrylic and mixed media on board, 91 x 60.5 cm; 92.5 x 62 cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Gift of Frank Watters 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program © Estate of Pat Larter. Photo: AGNSW 32.2018

Hidden women of history: Pat Larter, pioneering ‘femail’ artist who gave men the Playboy treatment

Best known as the subject of her husband Richard’s work, Pat Larter was herself a major artist.
The 2002 installation ‘Rape Garage’ displayed statistics about rape, along with first-person narratives about sexual trauma. Stefanie Bruser, Josh Edwards, Katie Grone and Lindsey Lee. Mixed media site installation at “At Home: A Kentucky Project with Judy Chicago and Donald Woodman.” 2001-2002. Courtesy the Flower Archive, housed at the Pennsylvania State University Archives.

A half-century before the hashtag, artists were on the front lines of #MeToo

Many Renaissance-era masterworks depicted rape and sexual assault as erotic. Beginning in the 1970s, artists worked to redefine rape as a crime of aggression and act of female subjugation.

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