Women Artists: Works from the National Museum of Women in the Arts [Hardcover]

Nancy G. Heller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 18, 2000

Beautifully designed and illustrated, Women Artists: Works from the National Museum of Women in the Arts features eighty-six notable women artists who have helped shape the world of art for the past five hundred years, from the Renaissance to the present. Written by the art historian Nancy G. Heller and showcasing the most noteworthy artists and key holdings of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., Women Artists authoritatively records the history of women in art.

Among the artists featured are the Italian Renaissance painter Lavinia Fontanta, considered Western Europe's first professional woman artist; the eighteenth-century silversmith Louisa Courtauld of England, one of the most important women of her time in the silver trade; modern-day artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Elizabeth Catlett, and Nan Goldin; and other legendary artists, including Berenice Abbott, Mary Cassatt, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Helen Frankenthaler, Frida Kahlo, Lee Krasner, María Montoya Martínez, and Georgia O'Keeffe, among many others. Artists' books from the collection are featured in a special section.

Women Artists presents the artists and their works in eight sections representing chronological and regional groupings. Each section opens with an introductory essay that places the works in a historical context, providing a general overview of the social and political forces that shaped the era and region in which the works were created. In addition to illustrating the artists' works in full color, Women Artists provides a portrait of each artist, a brief biographical entry, and a discussion of her work. Included is a complete listing of the artists whose works constitute the museum's 2,600 holdings.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Nancy G. Heller, Ph.D., is a professor of humanities at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and an art historian whose work focuses on women's art. The recipient of several awards and honors, she is the author of Women Artists: An Illustrated History, which has been published in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and France. She lives in Philadelphia.

Founded in 1981, the National Museum of Women in the Arts acknowledges and celebrates women's diverse artistic achievements over the centuries. The museum was established to challenge traditional histories of art, to uncover the works of women artists who have been overlooked and unacknowledged, and to ensure the place of women in contemporary art. Since 1987, when the museum opened in downtown Washington, D.C., it has presented more than 140 exhibitions of art made by women. The permanent collection contains approximately 2,600 works from the sixteenth century to the present created by almost seven hundred artists.

The women's museum also offers extensive education programs in the visual arts, literature, music, and film. To foster recognition of women artists in their home states, the museum has established state committees that sponsor events and organize exhibitions in local museums and art galleries. Since 1984 nearly two hundred thousand people have joined as members to support the museum and its mission, and nearly one million visited during its first decade.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Rizzoli; 1St Edition edition (November 18, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0847822907
• ISBN-13: 978-0847822904
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 1.1 x 12.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,399,700 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars price gouging, October 25, 2011

By 

Denise Ann Smith "clay artist 08" (Ann Arbor MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Women Artists: Works from the National Museum of Women in the Arts (Hardcover)

I'm not rating this book as much as commenting on what some sellers seem to be doing that I object to in sharing knowledge for profit. This book is actually available for $30 to nonmembers from the Museum Shop at the NMMA. I'm shocked that someone would want to charge such a high price for this book. I just received their Fall 2011 news bulletin and it is listed there. Thought I'd check to see if Amazon might have a better price. Looks like a used paperback costs more than their brand new softcover.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Survey of Important Women Artists, August 3, 2011

By 

Elliot Silvera - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Women Artists: Works from the National Museum of Women in the Arts (Hardcover)

One of our nation's newest art museums is also one of the most important. This Washington D.C. institution is the only one in the world devoted to women's contributions in art. Many of the featured women are not household names since they are not included in most art history textbooks. This book outstandingly written by the art historian, Nancy Heller, is a great introduction to these neglected artists and features the most notable holdings from the museum's collections. The book is divided into eight sections and features beautiful full page color reproductions and brief biographies of all the discussed artists:

16th and 17th Century Europe- From the Renaissance there have been female artists,especially in Italy. Lavinia Fontana is considered to be the first professional woman painter and the only Renaissance artist represented in the book. Her "Portrait of A Noblewoman", dated 1580 is probably the museum's earliest work. By the 17th century, women in other countries started to become successful artists. Rachel Ruysch and Judith Leyster were the two best known female Dutch artists, Louise Moillon from France and Clara Peeters from Flanders were pioneers of still life painting, and the German Maria Sybilla Merian was known for her scientific illustrations of plants and insects. Italian seventeenth century painting is represented by Elisabetta Sirani's tender "Virgin and Child".

18th Century Europe- In the 1700s France and England started to become the major centers of European art. Portraiture was the most important subject in painting. Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun is the most well known French painter discussed in this chapter. Adelaide Labille-Guiard, Marianne Loir, and Marguerite Gerard are the other featured French artists. Other important women include Italy's Rosalba Carriera who innovated pastel painting, the Swiss born neoclassical painter Angelica Kauffman who was a founding member of London's Royal Academy , and English silversmith, Louisa Courtauld.

19th Century Europe-By the nineteenth century more women were able to attend prestigious art schools. Until the 1800s there were also no important female sculptors. This section includes the works by three of the better known French artists: animal painter, Rosa Bonheur, sculptor, Camille Claudel, and impressionist, Berthe Morisot. Also illustrated are paintings by the Canadian born English painter, Elizabeth Forbes and the expatriate American, Elizabeth Jane Gardner who was also the wife of the French academic painter, William Bouguereau.

19th Century North America- Although there were colonial women artists, most of their work has been lost. Heller stresses the importance of the woman artist in the United States during the 1800s. The most famous by far is Mary Cassatt. Other major artists in this section include Sarah Peale who was the daughter of the important colonial artist James Peale, portraitist, Cecilia Beaux, genre painter, Lilly Martin Spencer, American impressionist, Lilla Cabot Perry, printmaker, Mary Nimmo Moran, still life painter Claude Raguet Hirst, sculptor, Bessie Potter Vonnoh, and the Philadelphia born English pre-Raphaelite artist, Anna Lea Merritt.

20th Century Europe- This section has some of the most prolific and interesting women artists. Besides painting and sculpture, several also designed costumes, textiles, and theater sets. Featured artists include the Germans Kathe Kollwitz, Gabriele Munter, and Lotte Lasserstein, Swiss painter, Alice Bially, Russian painter and designer, Sonia Terk Delaunay, French painter, Suzanne Valadon who was the mother of artist, Maurice Utrillo, English sculptor, Barbara Hepworth, and Portuguese modernist, Maria Elena Vieira da Silva.

20th Century America- In this review, I decided to combine the next two chapters. The first section is my preferred of the two which deals with artists who worked before 1945. There are photographs by Berniece Abbott and Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Indian pottery by Maria Montoya Martinez, Asian inspired prints by Bertha Lum, a Georgia O'Keeffe drawing, works by the African Americans Elizabeth Catlett and Lois Mailou Jones, and portraits by Alice Neel and Frida Khalo. However, my favorite piece from this chapter is "Summer Sunlight", an Impressionist inspired beach scene painting by Beatrice Whitney Van Ness. As not a fan of contemporary art, the next chapter didn't interest me as much. This section features abstract expressionist paintings including those by Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan, and Joan Mitchell, sculpture by Louise Nevelson and Petah Coyne, and works by feminist artists May Stevens and Hollis Sigler. However, I enjoyed the three non abstract paintings in this section: Stevens' portrait "Soho Women Artists", Melissa Miller's allegorical animal painting, "Broken Wing", and Sigler's,"To Kiss the Spirits", a landscape which borrows elements from Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night" and is part of her Breast Cancer painting series.

Artists' Books- Book art is a recent art form. Heller fully discusses the emergence of this specialty and describes the work by several female book artists.

Although a couple of other noteworthy artists such as Sofonsiba Anguissola, Artemisia Gentileschi,and Marie Laurencin were not included, this still makes a great survey on Western women's art history. If you are interested in learning more about this subject, you should add this museum catalogue to your art library.