I'm Not Your Muse: Uncovering the Overshadowed Brilliance of Women Artists & Visionaries

by Lori Zimmer, Maria Krasinski (illustrator)

An illuminating exploration of 31 incredible women—across art, architecture, dance, literature, and more—whose culture-defining contributions have, until now, been overshadowed by their role as "muses" to history's better-known men. 

What does it mean to be someone's "muse"? Historically, to be called a “muse” among artistic circles has been marketed as a flattering title. It is a commendation that most often refers to a woman whose vivacity and beauty are the source of inspiration for a (usually) male artist or creator. Perhaps her inspiring presence is even credited in the story of his success. But the very concept of a muse underestimates these women and their abilities. At its root, muse is a support role, the title a consolation prize that claims to recognize a woman’s greatness—but only in her support of another.

I'm Not Your Muse reclaims the narrative of 31 of these extraordinary women, from "The Mother of the Movies" Alice Guy-Blaché to Modernist designer Eileen Gray, prima ballerina Maria Tallchief, storied Harlem Renaissance editor Jessie Redmon Fauset, and many more. Each of these women advanced the narrative of culture and society, pushing the boundaries of visual arts, dance and movement, commercial architecture, music, journalism, and the performing arts. Whether by historical accident or cruel design, their contributions have historically been overshadowed by those of their male counterparts, and often collaborators.

In this briskly written, incisively researched compendium, author and researched Lori Zimmer repositions these women as the main characters of their own lives. Each profile is accented with original illustrations—including jaunty portraits in playfully constructed frames—by artist Maria Krasinski. Together, they highlight the contemporary accomplishments and historical legacies of a wide-ranging group of revolutionary women.

Genres: Feminism, Art, Biography, History, Nonfiction

200 pages, Hardcover

Published February 25, 2025

About the author

hi! I'm a New York-based author represented by Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency. I've written-Art Hiding in Paris: An Illustrated Guide to the City of Light (Running Press, 2022), Art Hiding in New York: An Illustrated Guide to the City’s Secret Masterpieces (Running Press, 2020), The Art of Spray Paint: Inspirations and Techniques from Masters of Aerosol (Rockport Publishers, 2017), and The Art of Cardboard: Big Ideas for Creativity, Collaboration, Story Telling, and Reuse (Rockport Publishers, 2015).
I've also written text featured in the books Own Your Awkward: How to Have Better and Braver Conversations About Your Mental Health by Michelle Morgan (Welbeck Publishing Group, 2021) and Logan Hicks: Still New York (forthcoming 2021).

I love to connect with my community, so please feel free to reach out https://www.arthiding.com/contact

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘I didn’t have time to be anyone’s muse,’ wrote Leonora Carrington, ‘I was too busy rebelling against my family and learning to be an artist.’ The spirit of art and the celebration of the women who made it is alive in I Am Not Your Muse: Uncovering the Overshadowed Brilliance of Women Artists & Visionaries from Lori Zimmer. Illustrated with exquisite portrait art by Maria Krasinski, Zimmer goes through a brief overview of a wide variety of artists across many fields to give them the spotlight they deserve and have often been denied. While I wish the book contained the actual artwork of these visionaries, Zimmer does a good job of pointing you to ones to look up and gives an excellent brief biographical tale complete with accomplishments and commentary on how they thrived or were unfairly denied credit for their work. This is a wonderful collection and a really fun read that reminds us that there were far more people—especially women—involved in the arts and for each artist we know about we can find dozens more that never got the credit they should have.

Clockwise from top left: Claude Cahun & Marcel Moore, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Maria Tallchief, and Ada Bricktop Smith

This is such a cool book. There was a lot to learn and I’d heard of very few of these women. We have painters and artists like art deco artist Hildreth Meiere; Pan Yuliang, the first Chinese woman to paint in the western style; May & Jane Morris who are ‘the key to our perpetual fascination with the Morris & Co. aesthetic’ despite Jane’s husband, William Morris, getting the spotlight; Librarian Belle da Costa Greene (who is cool as hell); French director Alice Guy-Blaché; Afro-Polish aerialist Miss La La who appears in paintings by Edgar Degas, and many more.

Art by Pan Yuliang

There is a strong feminist focus through many of these mini essays. I really liked, for instance, learning about Feminist, poet, painter, and journalist Na Hye-sŏk who became the first woman as a professional painter in Korea and was so known for her ‘brutally honest takedowns of gender sterotypes’ that young girls were asked “do you want to become another Na Hye-Sok?” as a threat against their starry-eyed idealism.

Art by Na Hye-sŏk

The spirit of collaboration, upholding the works of women, and celebrating their accomplishments is really joyfully pronounced here. Zimmer discusses how much anger she felt on hearing how many of these women were slighted or denied credit and concludes on a lovely essay about Las Tres Witches Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, and Kati Horna where she writes:

‘In a society when women still struggle for equality a quarter of the way into the twenty-first century, we should look to Carrington, Varo, and Horna, who chose to uplift each other, to collaborate rather than compete, to celebrate one another instead of letting society put them against each other. We should all be witches.’

There are so many great people represented here. Like German Avant-garde visual artist and poet Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven who’s portraits and visual art had her considered a living ‘embodiment of Dada,’ such as the film she made with Man Ray The Baroness Shaves Her Pubic Hair. Or Prima Ballerina Maria Tallchief, or
Clara Rockmore, of whom nobody could rock more on the theremin.

Clara Rockmore

I really enjoyed learning about artists who I recognized the work of but knew nothing about, like Claude Cahun & Marcel Moore who challenged gender roles and were early pioneers of genderqueer art:


One of my favorites, however, was Martha Gellhorn who is SO COOL. She was denied a press accreditation (as did every woman journalist) for the D-Day beach landing so she snuck onto a hospital ship and assisted medics during the landing. She was one of only a few journalists to witness the carnage firsthand and was there on the actual beach–unlike her ex-husband Ernest Hemingway (she was his 3rd wife and the only one to leave him) who has stolen her job at Collier’s as revenge for her leaving him and wrote an article about the landing. His article appeared alongside hers and did not provide firsthand details and they received equal credit, which infuriated him.


‘Art is not what you see, but what you make others see,’ said Edgar Degas, yet under patriarchy much of that attention was focused on making sure people saw the works of men and not women. Such as photographer Lucia Moholy who’s photographs documented the products of Bauhaus but was largely uncredited with her husband and Walter Gropius being misattributed the credit and Gropius refusing to return her negatives to her. Or Ethel Reed, a prominent poster artist largely associated with poppies art and was unfortunately eclipsed by men like Alphonse Mucha or Jules Cheret.

Art by Ethel Reed

This is a great little anthology and I would highly recommend it to anyone, art enthusiast or not. I wish the artworks were in the book, but that is a minor complaint for something so enlightening and fun.

4.5/5

[Jenny Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Justice for Martha Gellhorn!!! She was a force to be reckoned with. Hemingway was a blip on her long, fascinating life. This little book is gorgeous and well worth an afternoon of your time. Now, I’m off to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day 🎉🍻🍀

[Laura Nagel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Beautifully illustrated and so informative! This is a great book to read during Women's History Month! This book is filled with information about amazing creative women 💜

[Wenjing Fan · Rating 3 out of 5]

看到14/31，还是决定弃了。写的内容的有趣程度甚至不及维基百科，女性艺术家来自不同领域，但是选择标准是？还有一小部分比较糟糕的表达，比如觉得女性在家庭和事业都有所成就是“最具女权色彩的事情”。

[Star Shining Forever · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great collection of vignettes on overlook or overshadowed women artists from many fields: art, poetry, writing, architecture, dance, science, and more. There’s just enough information to get to know them, and I have a hefty list to dive into later.

History is written by the victors and we were always told the victors were men. Well, here we learn how so many women contributed so much to our societies, cultures, and daily lives — and how hard the men around and after them worked to ignore or straight up erase them. But we continue to fight, and we overcome.

This beautiful hardcover book with lovely illustrations is a treat, and a must-read.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

29 female artists active in the 19th and 20th centuries are profiled. Each has a 4-6 page write up and a drawing of their likeness. These are not your household named artists like Georgia O’Keefe or Dorothea Lange. Instead there are artists such as Lucia Moholy (Bahaus designer) or Loire Fuller (art nouveau dancer).

While there are painters and architects and dancers, the definition of art is wide. There is an aerialist (trapeze artist: Miss LaLa ), and a pioneer in electronic music (the Termen, later the Moog: Clara Rockmore).

Most of the artists were American or European, but India (architect: Minnette DeSilva), China (Pan Yuliang: painter) and Korea (Na Hye Sok: poet) are represented.

Two of the most interesting and successful were Clara Driscoll and Edmonia Lewis. Driscoll was the primary designer for the Tiffany Company. She designed the most popular (and most expensive) lamps. She did this against the backdrop of an all male union at Tiffany that kept trying to make Tiffany staff all male. Lewis, despite the "whites only" policies of universities and life in general, was able to get an education. She became a sculptor. Despite her race and gender was able to support herself through a steady stream of commissions.

I was surprised that almost all these (mostly) not famous women were in demand. They had very successful careers. It seems that their names should not have been lost. Most lived very long lives.

Very few of them had careers intertwined with a husband. Only one could be considered a muse: Fernande Ouvier, author of “Loving Picasso”. Martha Gellhorn, war correspondent, novelist and journalist was in no way a muse, but throughout her life many valued her short marriage to Earnest Hemingway over her achievements.

The write ups, while short are very good (although the last two seem as though they were written by a different person). There is a good index.

The book is well designed. The paper is of high quality. There graphic style matches throughout. The type fits the content and graphics. The style and the inspiring women make this an excellent gift.

A weakness is that there are no examples of the art.

[Sesana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truly interesting collection of biographies. The single greatest weakness is that there isn't a single image of any of the art these women created. I suspect there's a practical, legal reason for not including their work, a lot of which is probably still under copyright. But it is kind of ironic that a book about overlooked women artists doesn't include any of their actual art.

[Whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s shocking and at the same time totally NOT shocking how many amazing women’s stories have been buried by the men in their lives. In an age when women’s rights seem to be shrinking rather than increasing, holding their stories up to the light should be required. Do yourself a favor and read these women’s stories and then go find another amazing woman to celebrate in your own way.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
I learned so much about so many great unsung women! A wonderful book.