Celebrate Women’s History Month
Listen, watch, and explore stories about groundbreaking women artists
Helen Frankenthaler in her East 83rd Street and Third Avenue studio, New York, April 1964, Alexander Liberman. Getty Research Institute, 2000.R.19 (b.28, 184–185). © J. Paul Getty Trust
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Google “women artists” and you find endless lists: 20 Best Female Artists of All Time, 14 Famous Female Painters Every Art Lover Should Know, 12 Famous Female Artists We Bet You Didn’t Know, and so on.
But even if you don’t have a list handy, you know that women have been artists since the beginning of, well, art.It was likely rare, but women worked in Ancient Greek pottery studios, and created illustrations for medieval books. The first known author was also a woman.
For Women’s History Month, we’ve assembled a list of stories and resources to celebrate artists from throughout history and the world.
Listen: Recording Artists: Radical Women
What was it like to be a woman making art during the feminist and civil rights movements? Listen in as host Helen Molesworth delves into the lives and careers of six women artists spanning several generations. Using audio interviews from the 1960s and ’70s by Cindy Nemser and Barbara Rose, this podcast lets you listen to artists like Yoko Ono, Betye Saar, and Alice Neel talk about their relationships, their work, and their feelings about the ongoing march of feminism.
Read: Illuminating Women Artists
This illustrated series is authored by women and showcases the life and work of female artists who were well-known and sought after in their own time, but whose names and works have not been passed down continuously in the history of art.
Read about Luisa Roldán, a prolific and celebrated sculptor of the Spanish Golden Age, and Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Additional volumes on Rosalba Carriera, a renowned Venetian portraitist, and Elisabetta Sirani, one of the most innovative artists of the Bolognese school, will be published in May 2023, with additional titles forthcoming in 2024. This is a publishing partnership between Lund Humphries in the UK and Getty Publications, and you are based outside North America, you can purchase the books here.
Watch: Barbara T. Smith
“I believe the practice of women making art is political in and of itself,” writes Barbara T. Smith in her memoir. She was drawn more toward the universal—spiritual themes of sustenance and denial, sexuality and death—as she navigated her experiences as a woman, artist, mother, and daughter.
Watch this short documentary to learn more about her life and career.
