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Brushed Aside: The Untold Story of Women in Art
Discover anew the herstory of art that Publishers Weekly calls "illuminating" and Foreword Reviews calls "spirited" for an enlightening art history read. How many female artists can you name? Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keeffe, Marina Abramovic? How about female artists who lived prior to the Modern era? Maybe Artemisia Gentileschi and then… even a regular museum-goer might run out of steam. What about female curators, critics, patrons, collectors, muses, models and art influencers? This book provides a 360 degree look at the role, influence, and empowerment of women through art—including women artists, but going beyond those who have taken up a brush or a chisel. In 1971, Linda Nochlin published a famous essay, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” This book responds to it by showing that not only have there been scores of great women artists throughout history, but that great women have shaped the story of art. The result is a book that sheds light on the art world in a very new way, finally celebrating the great women artists and influencers who deserve to be much better known. The entire history of art can be told as a herstory of art.
232 pages, Hardcover
Published October 15, 2023
9 people are currently reading
185 people want to read
About the author
Noah Charney
89 books184 followersNoah Charney holds degrees in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art and Cambridge University. He is the founding director of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA), the first international think tank on art crime. He divides his time between New Haven, Connecticut; Cambridge, England; and Rome, Italy.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 3, 2023
Brief to the point synopsis of this topic. I've read more in depth writings on this topic in other books in school. I'd recommend this book to those who wish to stay informed and are short on time. It is beautifully written, with color illustrations-Art Samples, and touches upon each era of art.
September 28, 2023
Thank you, Rowan & Littlefield Publishers and Publishers Weekly’s Grab-a-Galley for the ebook galley of Brushed Aside by Noah Charney.
(I also posted this review on StoryGraph. My account there is se_wigget. I might stop using Goodreads altogether, since nowadays it only lets me log in via DuckDuckGo on my phone. Otherwise, it pretends my password is wrong... even after I change it... and change it....)
This art history book includes: a list of artworks, beautiful full-color illustrations, a bibliography, notes, and an index. It’s divided into two main parts: Part 1 is about women artists in historical art movements, and Part 2 is about women who were patrons of the arts, art collectors, critics, and scholars instead of artists. I’ve never come across the latter as a major topic in an art book.
Love this! The author says in the Acknowledgments, “Feminism is about respect and equality for women [and, I would add, all marginalized genders and orientations]. Every good person is a feminist. Here’s to all the good people.”
EVERY GOOD PERSON IS A FEMINIST, NEEDLEDICKBUGFUCKERS! I’ve known this for decades, of course. Years ago I realized that the only people I feel inclined to socialize with are feminists who have a high level of empathy. I also appreciate the bell hooks quote in the introduction.
This or a book like it should have been a text book at my alma mater (back in the early 1990s). While majoring in theater costume design, I took an art history class that was awful—a boring white male professor talking about white male art—and testing us on the name of the artist and painting, not giving us essay questions about art movements. The main thing I remember about that class is that a student fell asleep in class and the instructor made a loud noise and yelled extensively at the student. That woke everyone up. But… I digress….
The author admits that his slant is Eurocentric because that’s his specialty, and the book does cover more European and U. S. history, so there needs to be something similar about women’s art around the world/in other parts of the world. And yet there are some women of color and women from other parts of the world featured in this book, fortunately. I don’t know, maybe there’s an art history book on, for instance, specifically Asian women artists.
Did you know that Jackson Pollock didn’t invent abstract expressionism? No, Janet Sobel did. I already knew this, thanks to a placard at an art museum (one of the memories that came up while I read this book). This book addresses this, too.
The book shows dismissive shit sexist art critics and historians have said in the past.
Though the Foreword mentions arts and crafts such as crochet and sewing and lacemaking, and occasionally other art forms such as collage come up, the main focus of the book is painting, prints, and sculpture. Actually, the Bayoux Tapestry (embroidery) and other needlework briefly comes up in chapter 1. And I appreciate that the author acknowledges scholarly bias toward painting, sculpture, and architecture. There’s so much more to art (yes, including literature).
I’m disappointed that the book uses BC instead of BCE, which isn’t from a Christian supremacist perspective. But it does use CE (Common Era), so maybe by the time it’s published it’ll use BCE (hint, hint).
It’s a relief to see, for instance, “(born 1929)” instead of the birth year followed by a dash, as though the author is impatient for the subject to die.
I’m glad to see the Guerilla Girls get a mention in this book. Circa 2010, I attended a talk by one of them, Kathe Kollwitz.
I now want a book about queer women visual artists. A few of the artists featured in this book are queer, but many were married to male artists and overshadowed by their work (at least in their lifetimes).
The misogyny from art critics/reviewers, gallery owners, male artists—it’s not surprising, but it makes me want a dragon to burn them all to a crisp.
Sometimes when the author describes a work of art, it brings up a memory—I may have seen that piece in a museum or at least a book. A good example is Louis Nevelson’s sculpture Mrs. N’s Place—I don’t remember where, maybe Portland or Seattle, but it sounds like a sculpture before which I stood transfixed. I’m sure that if it wasn’t the same sculpture, it was the same artist (and it does sound like the same sculpture—made of found wood pieces and painted entirely black).
The stuff about art needing to be “interesting” (according to Aristotle’s standards) is so weird to me because of another undergraduate memory. It was my first year of college—the only year I majored in Art (as in visual art—all my majors were about creativity). An art teacher castigated me for calling another student’s art piece “interesting.” She went on a rant—to the class, embarrassing me in front of the whole class—about how “interesting” is too vague a description. I was shocked and inarticulate—after that humiliation, of course I didn’t know what else to say about the mixed media piece! But she expected me to say more about it. I needed to process, obviously, which I couldn’t do while in shock and in the spotlight. It was my first year of college, and I already had plans to switch majors.
This book is bringing up undergraduate memories.
I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy reading Part 2, about patrons of the arts and the like. But it proved to be really engaging, too, especially when it reaches the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and is no longer about queens and empresses. Many patrons were royalty, such as Catherine de Medici and Catherine the Great and Empress Tofukomon’in of Japan. But beginning in the late nineteenth century, women who weren’t royalty began to have incomes that made it possible for them to support the arts. Even Madame C. J. Walker and her daughter come up.
Overall, this art history book is an enjoyable read. The writing style is conversational and frequently humorous—never dry. It included artists I hadn’t previously heard of, though I have numerous books on women artists. There need to be plenty more such books. While reading this book, I felt inspired to order biographies on Rosa Bonheur (Art is a Tyrant: The Unconventional Life of Rosa Bonheur by Catherine Hewitt) and Anna Klumpke (Anna Klumpke: Turn-of-the-Century Painter and Her World by Britta C. Dwyer) and the book Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party in Feminist Art History by Amelia Jones.
ALSO READ:
Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement by Whitney Chadwick
Pre-Raphaelite Women Artists by Jan Marsh
Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (In that Order) by Bridget Quinn
(I also posted this review on StoryGraph. My account there is se_wigget. I might stop using Goodreads altogether, since nowadays it only lets me log in via DuckDuckGo on my phone. Otherwise, it pretends my password is wrong... even after I change it... and change it....)
This art history book includes: a list of artworks, beautiful full-color illustrations, a bibliography, notes, and an index. It’s divided into two main parts: Part 1 is about women artists in historical art movements, and Part 2 is about women who were patrons of the arts, art collectors, critics, and scholars instead of artists. I’ve never come across the latter as a major topic in an art book.
Love this! The author says in the Acknowledgments, “Feminism is about respect and equality for women [and, I would add, all marginalized genders and orientations]. Every good person is a feminist. Here’s to all the good people.”
EVERY GOOD PERSON IS A FEMINIST, NEEDLEDICKBUGFUCKERS! I’ve known this for decades, of course. Years ago I realized that the only people I feel inclined to socialize with are feminists who have a high level of empathy. I also appreciate the bell hooks quote in the introduction.
This or a book like it should have been a text book at my alma mater (back in the early 1990s). While majoring in theater costume design, I took an art history class that was awful—a boring white male professor talking about white male art—and testing us on the name of the artist and painting, not giving us essay questions about art movements. The main thing I remember about that class is that a student fell asleep in class and the instructor made a loud noise and yelled extensively at the student. That woke everyone up. But… I digress….
The author admits that his slant is Eurocentric because that’s his specialty, and the book does cover more European and U. S. history, so there needs to be something similar about women’s art around the world/in other parts of the world. And yet there are some women of color and women from other parts of the world featured in this book, fortunately. I don’t know, maybe there’s an art history book on, for instance, specifically Asian women artists.
Did you know that Jackson Pollock didn’t invent abstract expressionism? No, Janet Sobel did. I already knew this, thanks to a placard at an art museum (one of the memories that came up while I read this book). This book addresses this, too.
The book shows dismissive shit sexist art critics and historians have said in the past.
Though the Foreword mentions arts and crafts such as crochet and sewing and lacemaking, and occasionally other art forms such as collage come up, the main focus of the book is painting, prints, and sculpture. Actually, the Bayoux Tapestry (embroidery) and other needlework briefly comes up in chapter 1. And I appreciate that the author acknowledges scholarly bias toward painting, sculpture, and architecture. There’s so much more to art (yes, including literature).
I’m disappointed that the book uses BC instead of BCE, which isn’t from a Christian supremacist perspective. But it does use CE (Common Era), so maybe by the time it’s published it’ll use BCE (hint, hint).
It’s a relief to see, for instance, “(born 1929)” instead of the birth year followed by a dash, as though the author is impatient for the subject to die.
I’m glad to see the Guerilla Girls get a mention in this book. Circa 2010, I attended a talk by one of them, Kathe Kollwitz.
I now want a book about queer women visual artists. A few of the artists featured in this book are queer, but many were married to male artists and overshadowed by their work (at least in their lifetimes).
The misogyny from art critics/reviewers, gallery owners, male artists—it’s not surprising, but it makes me want a dragon to burn them all to a crisp.
Sometimes when the author describes a work of art, it brings up a memory—I may have seen that piece in a museum or at least a book. A good example is Louis Nevelson’s sculpture Mrs. N’s Place—I don’t remember where, maybe Portland or Seattle, but it sounds like a sculpture before which I stood transfixed. I’m sure that if it wasn’t the same sculpture, it was the same artist (and it does sound like the same sculpture—made of found wood pieces and painted entirely black).
The stuff about art needing to be “interesting” (according to Aristotle’s standards) is so weird to me because of another undergraduate memory. It was my first year of college—the only year I majored in Art (as in visual art—all my majors were about creativity). An art teacher castigated me for calling another student’s art piece “interesting.” She went on a rant—to the class, embarrassing me in front of the whole class—about how “interesting” is too vague a description. I was shocked and inarticulate—after that humiliation, of course I didn’t know what else to say about the mixed media piece! But she expected me to say more about it. I needed to process, obviously, which I couldn’t do while in shock and in the spotlight. It was my first year of college, and I already had plans to switch majors.
This book is bringing up undergraduate memories.
I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy reading Part 2, about patrons of the arts and the like. But it proved to be really engaging, too, especially when it reaches the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and is no longer about queens and empresses. Many patrons were royalty, such as Catherine de Medici and Catherine the Great and Empress Tofukomon’in of Japan. But beginning in the late nineteenth century, women who weren’t royalty began to have incomes that made it possible for them to support the arts. Even Madame C. J. Walker and her daughter come up.
Overall, this art history book is an enjoyable read. The writing style is conversational and frequently humorous—never dry. It included artists I hadn’t previously heard of, though I have numerous books on women artists. There need to be plenty more such books. While reading this book, I felt inspired to order biographies on Rosa Bonheur (Art is a Tyrant: The Unconventional Life of Rosa Bonheur by Catherine Hewitt) and Anna Klumpke (Anna Klumpke: Turn-of-the-Century Painter and Her World by Britta C. Dwyer) and the book Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party in Feminist Art History by Amelia Jones.
ALSO READ:
Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement by Whitney Chadwick
Pre-Raphaelite Women Artists by Jan Marsh
Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (In that Order) by Bridget Quinn
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 5, 2025
To answer the questions: How many female artists can you name? And how many do you know who lived prior to the Modern era? Noah Charney has boldly attempted a whirlwind survey - a compendium of brief portraits of women in art – scores of them - painters, printmakers, sculptors, writers, curators, patrons, scholars, models, muses – all trailblazers who defied the societal, cultural and creative limitations imposed upon them in their time, to succeed in inspiring and shaping the world of art from the Renaissance to the present day.
In a spare 200 pages – (given his editor’s finite word count!) Chaney provides a well researched and accessible resource for quick study, including – enough facts to remember, and brief enough to spark further inquiry into 72 featured artworks, and index of selected bibliography.
COMMON THEMES
Breakthroughs against the odds: Chaney’s roster of women were pioneers, ahead of their time, fiercely independent, disciplined, multi-talented (the word genius applies to many).
Educated or self-educated (by all possible/available means) in the arts. Multi-talented/ and multi-disciplined.
Forgotten: Creating their art under the wing – or developed under the shadows - of prominent men in the arts – fathers, husbands, lovers - whose influence presented an obstacle to developing their own identity and body of work– and yet, many pushed on to change the course or reinvent the genre in which they started.
Many were firsts:
RENAISSANCE TO REALISM
Catharina van Hemessen (1528–1565) was the first person to paint a self-portrait of an artist at work.
BAROQUE
Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1656) best known name among the pre-20th century artists - her work a standout equal to or surpassing Caravaggio
Judith Lyster – first women to be accepted into the Haarlem Guild of Saint Luke - her A Happy Couple painting stands in the Louvre – mistaken for a Frans Hals until his signature was revealed as a forgery to find her monogram
Louise Jopling (1843–1933), the first woman admitted to the Royal Society of British Artists, was “as important a political figure as she was a painter” and campaigned for women’s right to vote.
COLLAGE
Mary Delany, (1700-1788) first great painter of botany and inventor of sophisticate new collage technique
NEO CLASSICISM
Angelica Kauffman –(1741-1807) History painter - at the top of the hierarchy. One of the founders of the Royal Academy of Arts in London and with Mary Moser, the only female member for two centuries
Elizabeth-Louise Vigee Le Brun (1755-1842) – leading portrait painter in Paris, favored by Queen Marie Antoinette, portraying her in more than 20 paintings. Moved to Italy, then Vienna, to become the favorite of Catherine the Great in Russia
SCULPTURE
*Edmonia Lewis (1843—1907) - also known as Wildfire. Native American and Black lineage. One of earliest female students at Oberlin. the leading light in sculptor of Neoclassicism. Of mixed race, of former enslaved father, and Native American mother in the Chippewa tribe. One of the earliest female students at Oberlin College. . . after many struggled wrongly accused of poisoning schoolmates, moved to Boston, where she established herself making medallion portraits of abolitionists . . . driven onward to Rome in 1865 – to become the first women sculptor in European style to depict an African ruler -- Cleopatra. CMA: Indian Combat
Camille Claudel (1864-1943) - best known female sculptor, the protégé of Auguste Rodin (1870-1917)
REALISM
Eva Gonzales (1849-1883) daughter of prominent writer Emmanuel Gonzaels, the only pupil Manet is known to have trained.
Rosa Bonheur ((1822-1899) Known for her lifelike depiction of animals
IMRESSIONISM
Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) – Impressionist painter, fast friends with Manet, as his model in eleven paintings.
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) – the only American painter in the the Impressionist group: Manet, Courbet, Degas -- with Morisot considered “one of the boys” in an 1866 exhibition of Impressionist work in the U.S. held at the National Academy of Design in New York.
POST IMRESSIONISM
Lois Malou Jones (1905-1998) born into a middle-class Black family in Boston -- -- studied in France, showing interest in Impressionist and Postimpressionist non-European arts and crafts, integrating elements of Japanese, Oceanic and African art into her work. Taught at Howard from 1930-1977 encouraging students to know the art of their ancestors.
BLOOMSBURY GROUP
Dara Carrington (1893-1932) – a member of the Bloomsbury Group
HARLEM RENAISSANCE
* Agusta Savage_ (1892-1962) . One of 14 children, born to a poor minister in Florida – violently against her artistic ambitions. Moved to New York, graduated from Cooper Union School of Art with Harlem Renaissance in full swing. Fought for her art – to create sculptures – her most celebrated – Gamin (1929) for which she won a grant to study in Paris in 1929. Back in N.Y. in 1929, she established the first art studio helmed by a “prominent artist” that enrolled Black students.” Gamin, CMA
EXPRESSIONISM
Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945) – considered the go-to artist for German Expressionism
Paula Modersohn-Becker – first woman know to have depicted herself pregnant and nude
SURREALISM
Leonora Carrington ( 1917-2011) -- married Max Ernst and abandoned
Frida Kahlo - (1907- 1954) one of the few household names – intimate self portraits link personal stories.
Dorothea Tanning 1910-2012 – entirely self-taught – a huge distinction from just about every artist on the list. A commercial artist, painter, sculptor, a printmaker, a film maker, a writer and poet, Tanning lived to 101 – for all intents and purpose ,through the full expanse of 20th century with modern art at her fingertips.
FOLK ART
Anna Mary Robertson – Grandma Moses – considered to be a folk artist
AMERICAN MODERNISM
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) - her work among the most valuable ever sold by an artist, man or woman: Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 -- $44 million – rivaled only by Frida Kahlo .
ABSTRACTION
Hilma af Klint – (1862-1944) the first abstract painter in Western art history.
Janet Sobel (1893–1968) -Untrained artist and mother-of-five pioneered drip painting—preceding Jackson Pollock’s use of the method—though she was often overlooked by art critics who derisively cast her as a “Brooklyn housewife"
Elaine de Kooning (1918-1989) - writer, artist focused on Willem de Koonings work
Lee Krasner (1908-1984) - every bit the equal of husband Jackson Pollock - MOMA opened the doors in 1929.
MODERNIST SCULTURE
Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975
Louise Nevelson (1899-1988) – groundbreaking abstract sculptor
INSTALLATION ART
Judy Chicago - 1939- The Dinner Party
Maya Lin (1959) –Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial – student genius – Yale University
Yayoi Kusama (1929) – Abstract Expressionism and Pop Artist
In a spare 200 pages – (given his editor’s finite word count!) Chaney provides a well researched and accessible resource for quick study, including – enough facts to remember, and brief enough to spark further inquiry into 72 featured artworks, and index of selected bibliography.
COMMON THEMES
Breakthroughs against the odds: Chaney’s roster of women were pioneers, ahead of their time, fiercely independent, disciplined, multi-talented (the word genius applies to many).
Educated or self-educated (by all possible/available means) in the arts. Multi-talented/ and multi-disciplined.
Forgotten: Creating their art under the wing – or developed under the shadows - of prominent men in the arts – fathers, husbands, lovers - whose influence presented an obstacle to developing their own identity and body of work– and yet, many pushed on to change the course or reinvent the genre in which they started.
Many were firsts:
RENAISSANCE TO REALISM
Catharina van Hemessen (1528–1565) was the first person to paint a self-portrait of an artist at work.
BAROQUE
Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1656) best known name among the pre-20th century artists - her work a standout equal to or surpassing Caravaggio
Judith Lyster – first women to be accepted into the Haarlem Guild of Saint Luke - her A Happy Couple painting stands in the Louvre – mistaken for a Frans Hals until his signature was revealed as a forgery to find her monogram
Louise Jopling (1843–1933), the first woman admitted to the Royal Society of British Artists, was “as important a political figure as she was a painter” and campaigned for women’s right to vote.
COLLAGE
Mary Delany, (1700-1788) first great painter of botany and inventor of sophisticate new collage technique
NEO CLASSICISM
Angelica Kauffman –(1741-1807) History painter - at the top of the hierarchy. One of the founders of the Royal Academy of Arts in London and with Mary Moser, the only female member for two centuries
Elizabeth-Louise Vigee Le Brun (1755-1842) – leading portrait painter in Paris, favored by Queen Marie Antoinette, portraying her in more than 20 paintings. Moved to Italy, then Vienna, to become the favorite of Catherine the Great in Russia
SCULPTURE
*Edmonia Lewis (1843—1907) - also known as Wildfire. Native American and Black lineage. One of earliest female students at Oberlin. the leading light in sculptor of Neoclassicism. Of mixed race, of former enslaved father, and Native American mother in the Chippewa tribe. One of the earliest female students at Oberlin College. . . after many struggled wrongly accused of poisoning schoolmates, moved to Boston, where she established herself making medallion portraits of abolitionists . . . driven onward to Rome in 1865 – to become the first women sculptor in European style to depict an African ruler -- Cleopatra. CMA: Indian Combat
Camille Claudel (1864-1943) - best known female sculptor, the protégé of Auguste Rodin (1870-1917)
REALISM
Eva Gonzales (1849-1883) daughter of prominent writer Emmanuel Gonzaels, the only pupil Manet is known to have trained.
Rosa Bonheur ((1822-1899) Known for her lifelike depiction of animals
IMRESSIONISM
Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) – Impressionist painter, fast friends with Manet, as his model in eleven paintings.
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) – the only American painter in the the Impressionist group: Manet, Courbet, Degas -- with Morisot considered “one of the boys” in an 1866 exhibition of Impressionist work in the U.S. held at the National Academy of Design in New York.
POST IMRESSIONISM
Lois Malou Jones (1905-1998) born into a middle-class Black family in Boston -- -- studied in France, showing interest in Impressionist and Postimpressionist non-European arts and crafts, integrating elements of Japanese, Oceanic and African art into her work. Taught at Howard from 1930-1977 encouraging students to know the art of their ancestors.
BLOOMSBURY GROUP
Dara Carrington (1893-1932) – a member of the Bloomsbury Group
HARLEM RENAISSANCE
* Agusta Savage_ (1892-1962) . One of 14 children, born to a poor minister in Florida – violently against her artistic ambitions. Moved to New York, graduated from Cooper Union School of Art with Harlem Renaissance in full swing. Fought for her art – to create sculptures – her most celebrated – Gamin (1929) for which she won a grant to study in Paris in 1929. Back in N.Y. in 1929, she established the first art studio helmed by a “prominent artist” that enrolled Black students.” Gamin, CMA
EXPRESSIONISM
Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945) – considered the go-to artist for German Expressionism
Paula Modersohn-Becker – first woman know to have depicted herself pregnant and nude
SURREALISM
Leonora Carrington ( 1917-2011) -- married Max Ernst and abandoned
Frida Kahlo - (1907- 1954) one of the few household names – intimate self portraits link personal stories.
Dorothea Tanning 1910-2012 – entirely self-taught – a huge distinction from just about every artist on the list. A commercial artist, painter, sculptor, a printmaker, a film maker, a writer and poet, Tanning lived to 101 – for all intents and purpose ,through the full expanse of 20th century with modern art at her fingertips.
FOLK ART
Anna Mary Robertson – Grandma Moses – considered to be a folk artist
AMERICAN MODERNISM
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) - her work among the most valuable ever sold by an artist, man or woman: Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 -- $44 million – rivaled only by Frida Kahlo .
ABSTRACTION
Hilma af Klint – (1862-1944) the first abstract painter in Western art history.
Janet Sobel (1893–1968) -Untrained artist and mother-of-five pioneered drip painting—preceding Jackson Pollock’s use of the method—though she was often overlooked by art critics who derisively cast her as a “Brooklyn housewife"
Elaine de Kooning (1918-1989) - writer, artist focused on Willem de Koonings work
Lee Krasner (1908-1984) - every bit the equal of husband Jackson Pollock - MOMA opened the doors in 1929.
MODERNIST SCULTURE
Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975
Louise Nevelson (1899-1988) – groundbreaking abstract sculptor
INSTALLATION ART
Judy Chicago - 1939- The Dinner Party
Maya Lin (1959) –Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial – student genius – Yale University
Yayoi Kusama (1929) – Abstract Expressionism and Pop Artist
September 30, 2023
How many female artists can you name?
This book provides a 360 degree look at the role, influence, and empowerment of women through art—including women artists, but going beyond those who have taken up a brush or a chisel.
I read an article some time ago where a history teacher was talking about the invention of the calendar. She showed a fossil rock marked with 28 lines which was said to be the first ever man made calendar. And then the professor asked, 'Why would a man mark 28 days? Because, it was not a man who made that calendar, but a woman who was marking her menstrual cycle.'
Isn't it obvious that many such inventions and discoveries both in science and art must have been brushed away?
In 1971, Linda Nochlin published a famous essay, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Because They were "brushed aside".
I'm not even talking about women in art from a global perspective. This book sheds light on women from modern art, renaissance to realism.
How many of us know female artists from our region? Be it the Middle-East, Asia, Africa, any region. It's high time that we give her the credit that is long due.
The author says, the entire history of art can be told as a herstory of art.
Noah Charney, thank you for taking up the responsibility on your shoulders and writing this book. Thank you for sharing the ARC, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers and National Book Network. The book will be on sale from Oct 15, 2023.
This book provides a 360 degree look at the role, influence, and empowerment of women through art—including women artists, but going beyond those who have taken up a brush or a chisel.
I read an article some time ago where a history teacher was talking about the invention of the calendar. She showed a fossil rock marked with 28 lines which was said to be the first ever man made calendar. And then the professor asked, 'Why would a man mark 28 days? Because, it was not a man who made that calendar, but a woman who was marking her menstrual cycle.'
Isn't it obvious that many such inventions and discoveries both in science and art must have been brushed away?
In 1971, Linda Nochlin published a famous essay, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Because They were "brushed aside".
I'm not even talking about women in art from a global perspective. This book sheds light on women from modern art, renaissance to realism.
How many of us know female artists from our region? Be it the Middle-East, Asia, Africa, any region. It's high time that we give her the credit that is long due.
The author says, the entire history of art can be told as a herstory of art.
Noah Charney, thank you for taking up the responsibility on your shoulders and writing this book. Thank you for sharing the ARC, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers and National Book Network. The book will be on sale from Oct 15, 2023.
March 8, 2024
OK for introducing those who may have studied art history before the '90s and used Gardner's or Janson's as the text book. I actually studied art history after the '90s and I had heard of most of the artists that Charney mentions. But it was interesting which artists he focused on and which he didn't mention. Overall, I applaud his goal of exposing women artists throughout history, however, it is apparent that this isn't his specialty.
The author mentions Linda Nochlin's essay a lot. While it was a very pivotal essay in the '70s, in this day and time, it is less relevant. Also, the author seems to approach the essay literally, lamenting that Nochlin is saying there are no great women artists. Now, it's been a while since I read that essay, but what I recall is that the essay is less about stating there were no great women artists, but rather the power & economic structure and how genius was defined did not make room for women artists to be seen as great or allow such artists to reach their potential.
In any case, if the author simply used the book as a means showcased some artists that you may have missed in art history class, I think it would have made it a more meaningful read. I did discover some artists that I had not known about and that was enough to make it worthwhile for me to read this book.
The author mentions Linda Nochlin's essay a lot. While it was a very pivotal essay in the '70s, in this day and time, it is less relevant. Also, the author seems to approach the essay literally, lamenting that Nochlin is saying there are no great women artists. Now, it's been a while since I read that essay, but what I recall is that the essay is less about stating there were no great women artists, but rather the power & economic structure and how genius was defined did not make room for women artists to be seen as great or allow such artists to reach their potential.
In any case, if the author simply used the book as a means showcased some artists that you may have missed in art history class, I think it would have made it a more meaningful read. I did discover some artists that I had not known about and that was enough to make it worthwhile for me to read this book.
December 30, 2025
The book’s subtitle tells it all: The Untold Story of Women in Art. This book (interestingly written by a man) introduces us to some of the women artists whose work has been largely neglected in art history books. (I can attest to this as I majored in Art History and never even heard mentioned most of the women in this book). Taking us through centuries of the different movements in the art world, the author highlights the women who were also part of each movement and often most responsible for its origins. The book was well researched but could have used more illustrations. Some artists were discussed without showing any examples of their work. However, I can understand that a fully illustrated book on art was not the intention here and can also be a costly endeavor. I also understand that one small book doesn’t create a change in perception but at least it’s a start.
December 29, 2023
Seemed comprehensive (to my non-academic eyes[ although no survey book on any subject can be 100% inclusive -so, no doubt, some readers will find some omission to gripe about); loaded w/ info, very readable, good pictorial examples (although even more would have been welcome). Can't - at the moment - recall most of his examples, but 17th Century Dutch painter Judith Leyster comes to mind (stood out because her self-portrait is striking) as a painter every bit as good as her contemporary Frans Hals, but not (by far) as well-known.
December 16, 2024
I was astonished at the number of factual errors in this book...
Just a few examples: it's not true that none of de'Rossi's carved pits survive, Anguissola was not an official Spanish court painter, Gentileschi was not raped by Quorlis, and Gonzales is NOT portrayed on Manet's 'Balcony'.
I was really enthusiastic about this book as I value other Charney's works but this one just got me irritated.
Just a few examples: it's not true that none of de'Rossi's carved pits survive, Anguissola was not an official Spanish court painter, Gentileschi was not raped by Quorlis, and Gonzales is NOT portrayed on Manet's 'Balcony'.
I was really enthusiastic about this book as I value other Charney's works but this one just got me irritated.
December 9, 2023
Great author with an interesting view of groundbreaking women in art.
December 18, 2023
a good overview, esp for someone who knows very little about art history. the author's voice and asides got a little grating at times
September 28, 2023
Snap out of it, Badreads. I just posted a review of this book.
I also posted this review on StoryGraph. My account there is se_wigget. I might stop using Goodreads altogether, since nowadays it only lets me log in via DuckDuckGo on my phone. Otherwise, it pretends my password is wrong... even after I change it... and change it....
I also posted this review on StoryGraph. My account there is se_wigget. I might stop using Goodreads altogether, since nowadays it only lets me log in via DuckDuckGo on my phone. Otherwise, it pretends my password is wrong... even after I change it... and change it....
September 1, 2023
I found this to be a very interesting read about the women who often go unmentioned or underappreciated in art's history. It does read like a textbook (which makes sense because the author is a professor) and I think it's a great addition to the library of any artist or art teacher. I very much enjoyed the images of the works being discussed as I wasn't familiar with many of them. I would love for more images of the mentioned pieces to be included, although that might turn it more into a coffee table art book!
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