I made an impulse purchase when I saw this in Kelly Sue DeConnick’s substack (for those of you who don’t know, she’s a brilliant comic book writer, probably most known for reinventing Captain Marvel.) It is a weighty tomb, but delightfully, given the subject matter, full of pictures.

Now, I don’t profess to understand a lot of art. I kind of like what I like, and don’t like a whole lot of other stuff. But what I do like is pointing out stupid misogyny, and this book does a whole lot of that. So on an enjoyment level, it was very high.

What was astounding was how many of the women, especially pre-20th century, were famous for being artists in their own time. But then instantly forgotten or written out of a male dominated history (or you know, had everything they painted being attributed to men). What was also monumentally depressing was how many times a woman stopped making art because:

1. They died in childbirth.
2. They died of or cancer or suicide (or some other tragic reason).
3. They got married and had lots of children and basically became too busy.

At least two of those issues, not really affecting their contemporary male artists.

The book does a really good job of contextualising the different art movements, because I don’t really know when things happen, but also how different movements were reactions to other movements. It was really interesting and at least makes me somewhat sympathetic to some of the pieces in the book that I don’t really ‘get’.

But what really came through was how interesting all these women were, and how hard they worked in position to the entire art establishment blocking them from the sort of opportunities that male (more often white male) artists received, right up to when I’ve been alive. The book also is also really good at highlighting women from a huge array of backgrounds, and the particular themes that interest them. There’s discussions of civil rights, LGBTQIA, post-colonialism, capitalism and how those influence each particular artist highlighted.

My particular favourites from the book were:

• Clara Peeters (Flemish still life, from the 17th century)
• Artemisia Gentileschi (Italian Baroque, 16th century)
• Judith Leyster (Dutch, 17th century, who had almost everything attributed to other men until the 19th century!)
• Katsushika Ōi (Japanse Ukiyo-e artist, 19th century
• Gluck (British painter, 20th century)
• Romaine Brookes (American painter, 20th century)

Anyway, great read, buy it for the arty or feminist in your life.