1. THEARTOF
FEMINISM
Professor Will Adams

2. Structure of lesson
By the end of this lesson, you
will have an understanding
of
• What is Feminism?
• Representation of
Women /women
artists in Art History
• Feminist Art

3. Introductory questions
• In groups, discuss these questions and jot
answers:
– How would you define Feminism?
– If you can’t define it, list what you know about
it. e.g. can you name any feminists?
– Would you consider yourself a Feminist? Why
or why not?
– Is there still any need for feminism?

4. FEMINISM IS
A political discourse
[way of thinking]
which seeks
• equality of
opportunities & and
rights for women
• It is about challenging
– Relations between
men and women
– power structures &
laws that keep women
subordinate
– Division of labor along
gender lines
And empowering women
to have their full rights
as citizens and human
beings.

5. Feminism
A political discourse [way of
thinking] which seeks
– equality of opportunities
& and rights for women
3 main “waves” of
Feminism
– 19th C-early 20th C:
Suffragettes - voting rights.
– 1960s-70s: Civil rights
movt  Feminist movt.
Sought Legal / social
equality for women.
– 1990s- to the present:
Post-colonial and Third
World Feminism. Critiqued
ethnocentricity in Western
Feminism.
Faith Ringgold We Came to
America 1997

6. If you marry,
would you
take your
husband’s
name?
• In August 2009, the American Sociological Association
held its annual meeting in San Francisco. Researchers
presented findings from a national survey of 815 people
on family and gender issues. Apparently, 71 percent of
Americans believe a woman should take her
husband's last name, and half believed it should be a
legal requirement.
(Fri August 14, 2009. Mother Jones magazine)

7. What’s the difference between a
Woman and a Female?
• WOMAN
• Gender
• Related to identity
• “One is not born a
woman, one
becomes one.”
(Simone De
Beauvoir, 1908-
1986)
• Is gender
‘performative’? i.e.
about the way we
act?
• FEMALE
• Sex
• Related to biology
• “Female: one of the
opposing, or unfair
sex.” (Ambrose
Beirce, 1842-1914)
• Are female traits
inherent in our
biological make up?

8. 1960s – 70s Feminism
N.O.W - National
Organisation of
Women (formed by
Betty Freidan &
others) campaigned
for equal rights
• Contraceptive pill 
sexual revolution.
– Women had a
CHOICE about
whether to be a
mother/homemaker
• Other Issues of
importance
– Treatment of rape
victims
– Abortion rights
– Domestic violence

9. Books that influenced Feminist theory
• SdB showed how women are treated as “other” (not-men; inferiors to men) (1949)
• BF challenged the roles of women in society, presenting statistics comparing
womens’ participation in higher education / labour force. (1963)
• GG called for women’s liberation through sexual liberation. (1970)

10. Women in Art History
“Why have there been no great women artists?”
(Linda Nochlin, 1971)
Group 1: write down as many male artists you can think of.
Group 2: Write down as many women artists that you can
think of.

11. Did you get…?
• Artemisia
Gentileschi
• Rosa Bonheur
• Angelica
Kauffman
• Kathe Kollwitz
• Mary Cassatt
• Berthe Morisot
• Suzanne Valadon
• Georgia O’Keefe
• Judy Chicago
• Alice Neel
• Frida Kahlo
• Remedios Varo
• Faith Ringgold
• Bridget Riley
• Lee Krasner
• Audrey Flack
• Eva Hesse
• Marisol
• Meret Oppenheim
• Paula Modersohn-
Becker
• Cindy Sherman
• Miriam Schapiro
• Guerrilla Girls
• Barbara Kruger
• Emily Karaka
• Jacqueline Fahey
• Carole Shepheard
• Robyn Kahukiwa

12. Where were all the women artists?
Pre-70s Art History texts rarely mentioned them.
L-R: Works by
Artemisia Gentileschi,
Angelica Kauffman ,
Elizabeth Vigee
Lebrun

13. Artistic
Context
• Few women artists admitted
to Art academies
• “Old Masters” – almost all
male!
• Female artists often ignored
by art historians (often men!)
• Art done by women often
seen as second rank or
“feminine” (decorative,
sentimental, amateur,
uncreative) e.g.
watercolours, miniatures,
embroidery, pottery
• Women barred from Life
Drawing classes 16th-19th C
• Women were often the
OBJECTS of art (i.e. models

14. Role of women
in Renaissance Italy• Humanism promoted the
education of women (so they
could be better wives and
mothers)
• Virtuous, ideal Christian woman
= chaste and obedient. Ideal
man = self-sufficient and active.
• Castiglione’s Book of the
Courtier: Lady  educated and
cultured. Her task to charm,
but male courtier’s was to
prove himself in action.
• Women artists do feature in
Vasari’s Lives but as
‘exceptions’- 4 out of the 160
artists he mentions are women. Self Portrait of Sofonisba of
Cremona (16th C)
I’m
exceptional

15. Evidence of Discrimination
• Women under represented in exhibitions and
galleries even though there were just as many
women artists e.g. Lee Krasner, Elaine De
Kooning
Gothic Landscape, Lee Krasner 1961
Elaine & Willem De Kooning.
“ It is so good that
you would not
know it was done
by a woman.” (Hans
Hoffman, 1930s)
Heard of
me,
honey?

16. Evidence of Discrimination
• HW Janson’s History of Art
first published in 1962
contained neither the name
or work of a single woman
artist.
• It was this context that
motivated Judy Chicago’s
Dinner Party and Mary Beth
Edelson’s work Some Living
American Women Artists /
Last Supper
“I have not been able to
find a woman artist who
clearly belongs in a one-
volume history of art.”
HW Janson, 1979

18. Challenging
the Patriarchy
• Women artists, art historians
and critics join together and
protest against male-
dominated art institutions
• 1970 - Lucy Lippard and
others demand equality at the
Whitney museum annual
shows (5% women artists
shown).
• 1971 – Art historian Linda
Nochlin’s article in Art News
“Why have there been no
great women artists?”
• W.A.R – Women Artists in
Revolution used guerrilla
tactics
1980s Guerrilla Girls formed.
Anonymous group wore gorilla
masks and plastered posters
around NY city to protest
discrimination against women
artists.

19. What kind of
ideas
about
women are
presented
by these
images?

20. Representation
of women in art
• Stereotyped roles, e.g. Virgin or whore
• Women’s bodies presented as sexual objects
• Associated with traits such as vulnerability,
passivity, nature, purity
• Art work assumes the controlling position of
a male spectator (the “male gaze” – Laura

21. Feminist Art
History becomes Herstory
Ingres Turkish Bath v. Sylvia Sleigh Turkish Bath

22. What is Feminist Art?
Art that
• challenges the patriarchy
(Patriarchy = social system that gives power to men;
discriminates against women)
Through
1. Raising women’s political issues e.g. rape, abortion
women’s roles in society
2. Exploring a female heritage, e.g. Increasing respect for
women artists, recognising women’s historical
contributions to society or women in mythology
3. Challenging notions of high art vs. craft art, e.g.
through collaboration
4. Use of Feminist imagery
5. Challenging gender stereotypes

23. 1. Women’s political issues
• Allie Eagle (NZ) “The Personal is
Political” Faith Ringgold’s Weight Loss
performance Story quilt 1986

24. Guerrilla Girls

25. 2. Exploring female heritage
• Paying homage to women artists and role
models from history as well as reclaiming
goddess imagery
Mary Beth Edelson, Some Living American Artists
1971 and Woman Rising 1974.

26. 3. Challenging
division between
high art and
“craft”
• Miriam
Schapiro’s
femmage
(Feminist +
collage)
Wonderland 1983
Mother Russia 1994

27. 4) Feminist Imagery
e.g. Judy Chicago’s “Core” Imagery –
“My central core, my vagina, that which makes me a
woman.”

28. 5. Challenging gender stereotypes
• Cindy Sherman & Barbara Kruger

29. 6. Interest in Identity
• Cindy Sherman’s Bus Stop series, Untitled Film
Stills

30. Feminist art is not a specific style
• It was“neither a style nor a
movement, but instead was a
value system, a
revolutionary strategy, a
way of life…. That what was
revolutionary was not its forms
but its content.”
• (Lucy Lippard)
Would you consider any of these ‘Feminist’?

31. Revision of Key Terms
Define to your
partner:
• Feminism
• Feminist art
• Representation
• Patriarchy
• Male gaze