Women Artists and Patrons in the Netherlands, 1500-1700


Book Description

This essay collection features innovative scholarship on women artists and patrons in the Netherlands 1500-1700. Covering painting, printmaking, and patronage, authors highlight the contributions of women art makers in the Netherlands, showing that women were prominent as creators in their own time and deserve to be recognized as such today.




Women Patrons and Collectors


Book Description

In looking at the history of collecting, one may be excused for regarding it as an activity in which, traditionally, women have shown little interest or in which they have not been involved. As the present volume shows, women—particularly aristocratic women—not only resisted this discrimination through the ages, but also built important collections and used them to their own advantage, in order to make statements about their lineage, power, cultural heritage or religious preferences. That is not to say that there was not an increasing number of middle-class women who became draughtswomen, painters and natural scientists and who found it equally beneficial for their chosen profession to collect. In every case, the female collector chose to collect and what to collect; she chose how and where to present the collection and she also decided when to dispose of objects, thereby occasionally taking on a curatorial role. Women have been seen as gatherers of furnishings, jewellery, dress and objects of domestic life. This third volume in the Collecting & Display series of conference proceedings challenges such perceptions through the detailed analysis of different types of collecting by women from the early modern period onwards; it thus seeks to give a voice to a group of important female collectors from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century whose importance for the history of collecting has not yet, or not sufficiently, been acknowledged.




Women and Art in Early Modern Europe


Book Description

While most of the projects discussed are consistent with the period's male-sanctioned concept of female patronage as an expression of conjugal devotion or dynastic promotion, at the same time the women involved devised strategies that circumvented these rules, allowing them to explore the potential or art as a means of proclaiming their own identity and taste.




Women Artists, Their Patrons, and Their Publics in Early Modern Bologna


Book Description

Examines sixty-eight women artists in early modern Bologna, revealing how they obtained public commissions and expanded beyond the portrait subjects to which women were traditionally confined. Uses new methodological models for considering gender and art in early modern Italy.




Women Artists in Early Modern Italy


Book Description

In ten chapters spanning two centuries, this collection of essays examines the relationships between women artists and their publics, both in early modern Italy as well as across Europe. Drawing upon archival evidence, these essays afford abundant documentary evidence about the diverse strategies that women utilized in order to carry out artistic careers, from Sofonisba Anguissola's role as a lady-in-waiting at the court of Philip II of Spain, to Lucrezia Quistelli's avoidance of the Florentine market in favor of upholding the prestige of her family, to Costanza Francini's preference for the steady but humble work of candle painting for a Florentine confraternity. Their unusual life stories along with their outstanding talents brought fame to a number of women artists even in their own lifetimes - so much fame, in fact, that Giorgio Vasari included several women artists in his 1568 edition of artists' biographies. Notably, this visibility also subjected women artists to moral scrutiny, with consequences for their patronage opportunities. Because of their fame and their extraordinary (and often exemplary) lives, works made by women artists held a special allure for early generations of Italian collectors, including Grand Duke Cosimo III de' Medici, who made a point of collecting women's self-portraits. In the eighteenth century, British collectors wishing to model themselves after the Italian virtuosi exhibited an undeniable penchant for the Italian women artists of a bygone era, even though they largely ignored the contemporary women artists in their midst.




Women Artists in History


Book Description

"The careers and accomplishments of women creators in Western Civilization are described in an accessible and informative mattner in the Second Edition of Women Artists in History: From Antiquity to the 20th Century. Over sixty artists, mostly painters and sculptors, are featured in this book. Selections were based on each woman's unique and important contributions to the history of art. each artist measures up to the same rigorous standards applied to male artists in other survey texts. To understand and appreciate the achievements of these outstanding women, this volume takes a thorough look at the cultural environment in which they lived and worked, as well as the social, economic, and demographic factors that influenced their art." --From back cover




Madam and Eve


Book Description

How do women paint or photograph each other? How do they represent each other in performance or sculpture? As mothers or heroines? With tenderness, aggression or respect? Madam & Eve explores the female gaze as it focuses on other women. The authors – an artist and a curator – investigate the work of over 200 artists, ranging from the well-established to the lesser known. A historical introduction sets up the artistic and cultural context for the rest of the book, which focuses on art since the 1970s and covers the universal themes of the body, life, death, stories, and icons. The result is an amazing parade of artworks: eye-catching, poignant, powerful, political, idiosyncratic, playful, awkward, passionate, sexy, and positive. It is also an eloquent examination of the impact that the feminist movement has had on contemporary art.




Great Women Artists


Book Description

Five centuries of fascinating female creativity presented in more than 400 compelling artworks and one comprehensive volume The most extensive fully illustrated book of women artists ever published, Great Women Artists reflects an era where art made by women is more prominent than ever. In museums, galleries, and the art market, previously overlooked female artists, past and present, are now gaining recognition and value. Featuring more than 400 artists from more than 50 countries and spanning 500 years of creativity, each artist is represented here by a key artwork and short text. This essential volume reveals a parallel yet equally engaging history of art for an age that champions a greater diversity of voices. "Real changes are upon us, and today one can reel off the names of a number of first-rate women artists. Nevertheless, women are just getting started."—The New Yorker




The Empress of Art


Book Description

A German princess who married a decadent and lazy Russian prince, Catherine mobilized support amongst the Russian nobles, playing off of her husband's increasing corruption and abuse of power. She then staged a coup that ended with him being strangled with his own scarf in the halls of the palace, and herself crowned the Empress of Russia. Intelligent and determined, Catherine modeled herself off of her grandfather in-law, Peter the Great, and sought to further modernize and westernize Russia. She believed that the best way to do this was through a ravenous acquisition of art, which Catherine often used as a form of diplomacy with other powers throughout Europe. She was a self-proclaimed "glutton for art" and she would be responsible for the creation of the Hermitage, one of the largest museums in the world, second only to the Louvre. Catherine also spearheaded the further expansion of St. Petersburg, and the magnificent architectural wonder the city became is largely her doing. There are few women in history more fascinating than Catherine the Great, and for the first time, Susan Jaques brings her to life through the prism of art.




Women Artists Early Modern Courts Eurohb


Book Description

1. The book is the first devoted to the topic of women artists across the courts of early modern Europe. 2. The essays consider women artists and their experiences in a variety of European courts, in Italy, Flanders, Spain, and England. 3. The essays included address a variety of forms of artistic production by women in the courts, including large and small-scale paintings, sculpture, prints, and textiles.