Book Review: Great Women Painters
Great Women Painters is an art-book that honours female practitioners of this timeless art-form. The editors take no half-measures in this ambition, including paintings from over three hundred artists across sixty countries in a timeframe of five hundred years. The result is an expansive tome that shines a welcome spotlight on some extraordinary work. It’s never been a better time to celebrate and recognize the contributions of women painters. This book rises to the task admirably.
The main section of Great Women Painters is arranged so that each page is dedicated to a different artist and a single painting from their repertoire. Instead the selected artists have been arranged alphabetically which affords an enjoyable randomness to the experience – from different epochs, art movements, worldviews and techniques. Reading it from cover to cover, the reader will move from vegetarian vampires in 1960s Mexico on one page to the heart of Renaissance Italy on another.
The selection leans more heavily towards the twentieth century onwards, and as is the case with modern art, some of them are better than others. It’s ultimately subjective at the end of the day, and the variety on offer means that the widest range of tastes is still catered to.
The text also offers substantial art criticism. It’s aligned with “the discipline of feminist art history,” as Alison M. Gingeras notes in her erudite introduction. This work continues the debate ignited in Linda Nochlin’s Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? (1971), and serves as a sister volume to Phaidon’s own Great WomenArtists (2019). There are some amazing characters here, like a Victorian miniaturist who painted without limbs (Sarah Biffin) and a Japanese master obsessed with postmodern teddy bears (Eguchi Ayane). This book doesn’t just chronicle painters. It offers snapshots into the lives of women in diverse settings over half a millennium.
The editors haven’t shied away from the difficulties faced by women painters across history. As the artist Chen Ke eloquently puts it: “We are all dancing with shackles to find a shelter for ourselves within limited freedom.” Ultimately, though, the core of Great Women Artists is celebratory and uplifting. It shows how women have always been painting alongside the men, no matter how prohibitive the profession appeared to be. It’s full of fascinating facts and gorgeous art. Readers will be happy to meet an amazing line-up of painters. We can only hope Phaidon continues to produce such high-quality books that champion the cause of female artists.
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