The Exclusion of Women from Art History
In 1998, when I was enrolled as an art history student at a well-known San Francisco Art college, I found my self feeling
equal parts facination and frustration. I loved the class, and enjoyed learning about the history of thousands of years of art -
but as I studied the text and willfully memorized it's contents, I wondered: Where are the women?
Sure there is one here, and a few there ... but not many. I don't remember learning about one single contribution
made by a woman for the first four thousand years of recorded art history. And in realizing that in my lifetime
I have known more female artists than male, I could only imagine that there must be another history of art that tells the stories of
women also. So I did a lot of research, got even more frustrated, wrote a paper or two on the subject, and moved on with life. Now, as a web
designer, I have an opportunity to share some of what I discovered, in what has become my own personal attempt to help redefine the "history" of western art
to include the names of very worthy women.
In fact, many women artists were highly successful during their lifetimes. Yet, for reasons I will discuss later, these women have
been omitted from art historical documentation. For instance, before 1986, all
editions of H.W. Janson's History of Art
(the standard text used in introductory college art history classes), included
3,000 male and no female artists. In the latest version, published in 1991, only
19 women are represented. And the few women who's names
we recognize are exoticized as exceptions - a unique status which can be used as
a weapon to undermine her achievement, a bizarre but all too common transformation of the women artist from a
producer in her own right into a subject for representation.
Many great women artists have become "invisible" because of misattribution.
In her book Women, Art, and Society, Whitney Chadwick states:
"Our
language and expectations about art have tended to rank that produced by women
as below that produced by men in "quality", resulting in a lesser monetary
value. This has profoundly influenced our knowledge and understanding of the
contributions made by women to painting and sculpture." (17) She continues
"Since the monetary value of works of art is inextricably bound up in their
attribution to "named" artists, the work of many women has been absorbed into
that of their betterknown male colleagues. " (22)
Thousands of women artists have made significant contributions to the history
of art. The majority of these works have been perceived as marginal, often in
direct reference to gender. As I began to further research this subject, I
was also forced to address the closely related issues
of ethnicity, class, and sexuality.
This website is an ongoing project, and your suggestions and/or contributions are welcome.
- Christa Hillhouse, 2003
