Women Artists [Hardcover]

Margaret Barlow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 30, 2001

This beautiful, oversized book features the work of women artists from the Renaissance to today. The full-page illustrations bring to light these artists’ achievements, including historical and cultural notes to place their works in perspective. Margaret Barlow’s informative and well-researched text highlights the lives and accomplishments of well-known and lesser known women whose art has been influential to the larger society, despite restricted access to formal training, and in the face of societal pressures to conform to prescribed virtues of "womanhood," overcame impediments to pursue successful careers in art through the ages—Judith Leyster, Elisabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun, Angelica Kauffmann, Emily Mary Osborn, Lilly Martin Spencer, Mary Cassatt, Camille Claudel, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Georgia O’Keeffe, Käthe Kollwitz, Frida Kahlo, Dorothea Tanning, and Judy Chicago, are some of the artists highlighted.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This beautiful, oversize, and especially well-crafted volume surveys women artists from the Middle Ages through the present. A chronological summary by Barlow, associate editor of the Women's Art Journal, touches on nearly 300 painters and sculptors--whose works are then highlighted by the 281 large, high-quality color plates making up the bulk of the book. Geared to those unfamiliar with the subject, this study is not path-breaking but will, as Barlow hoped, "inspire others to learn more." Unfortunately, there are neither footnotes nor a bibliography, and it will be up to librarians to recommend further reading on the subject, e.g., the basic reference Dictionary of Women Artists (LJ 12/97), Frances Borzello's fascinating Seeing Ourselves: Women's Self-Portraits (LJ 9/1/98), and Elizabeth Martin and Vivian Meyer's Female Gazes: Seventy-Five Woman Artists (Second Story, 1997). Highly recommended for the browsing reader and for interested students and scholars of all ages.
-Mary Hamel-Schwulst, Towson Univ., MD
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Inside Flap

achievements of women in the arts have, until recently, been a well-kept secret, and the (re)discovery of women artists is one of the great ongoing adventures of the twentieth century, revealing vibrant, long-neglected chapters in humanity's history, and redefining our very understanding of what art is. From Caterina dei Vigri, a medieval artist-nun, whose name is known to us by chance, to the late-eighteenth-century Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun, one of the most talented and successful portraitists of her splendid and doomed era, to today's brash, subtle, ribald multimedia virtuosas, Women Artists presents a wealth of information on the subject with nearly 300 colorplates of works by extraordinary female artists from over five centuries.

Margaret Barlow's informative and well-researched text highlights the lives and accomplishments of well-known and lesser-known women whose art has stood for something more than the sum of its parts. Women Artists takes up the moving, insightful, and ultimately inspiring exploration of women's invisible history, the heartfelt religious paintings, fulsome stilllifes, skillful portraits, monumental sculpture, earthworks, and neon installations--the full gamut of women's participation in the development of Western art. Additionally, included here are diary and journal entries, letters, and snippets of autobiographies of several women artists whose lives and achievements have cast a particular drama or influence. The stories of these and the other women included in this volume--Judith Leyster, Angelica Kauffmann, Emily Mary Osborn, Camille Claudel, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Georgia O'Keeffe, Käthe Kollwitz, Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, Faith Ringgold, Judy Chicago and scores of others--deserve a prominent place in the long and continuing history of art. The struggle goes on to bring women into the public world of museums and galleries. The last word is far from written. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Beaux Arts Editions (May 30, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0883633469
• ISBN-13: 978-0883633465
• Product Dimensions: 14.4 x 11.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,869,394 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Women Artists, March 29, 2000

By 

Adrienne Hughes, San Jose, CA (San Jose, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Women Artists (Hardcover)

I received this fabulously beautiful book as a gift and am absolutely thrilled with it. I intend to spend many hours studying the pieces and reading about the women who created them. I would recommend this book for anyone who has an interest in aesthetics and an appreciation for women as artists.

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very nice, but a bit too modern, March 27, 2007

By 

Wyota - See all my reviews

This review is from: Women Artists (Hardcover)

This is a very nice, large format, book full of quality illustrations. My only complaint is that the latter half of the book is devoted almost exclusively to modern (futurists, surrealists, abstractionist, etc.) arts. If the entire book had been devoted to real artists - those who paint recognizable subjects and do it well - then this book would merit 5 stars.