Women Artists from Antiquity to Present

Music-making was another art form in which women participated, and a key element of religious worship. The Egyptian papyrus below belonged to a woman named Aset, who was a “singer of Amun.” Aset lived around 1069–900 BCE, and her title designated her as a priestess and ritual singer for the cult of Amun at Karnak.

Although women artists in the Renaissance and Baroque were far less common than their male peers, a few were able to excel in their art and even push artistic boundaries of style and subjects. Let’s explore two of these artists working in Italy: Lavinia Fontana and Artemisia Gentileschi.

Lavinia’s early work, such as The Wedding Feast at Cana (c. 1575–1580), reveals several influences as she developed her own creative vision. Recent examination of both her drawing and painting from the Getty collection demonstrated that Lavinia based her composition on a drawing by Florentine painter Giorgio Vasari. Vasari’s work, which reimagines a Biblical tale in a Classical setting, was owned by her father.

Her renowned portraits were accepted as part of a conventional feminine genre, but Lavinia’s work on religious themes and figures pushed the boundaries of established subjects for women painters. She ended up producing the largest surviving body of work by a woman artist of her era.

Lavinia’s career arguably paved the way for Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the most prominent women painters of the following generation. Like Lavinia, Artemisia was trained in Rome by her father, Orazio, and mastered Caravaggio’s techniques of rendering light and shadows with him. She was one of the earliest women to join the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence in 1617. 

Be it Lucretia, Judith, or Jael, as seen above, Artemisia painted each woman with realism and powerful emotion. She rendered female subjects with intense naturalism, detailing features and skin carefully, often using her own body as a model.

While drawing was essential to the production of paintings, it was also celebrated in its own right. The creative works of the following artists, rendered in pastel and chalk, reflect the pioneering spirit of these women, who were often among the first female members of the artistic organizations of their eras. 

Finding inspiration on frequent hikes, Emilie Mediz-Pelikan captured this scene while on a trip to the Adriatic Coast of Italy. With green chalk on blue paper, she depicts a rain-soaked earth below a forbidding evening sky, which is rendered in a combination of conte crayon and orange chalk. 

Although she was denied access to the official art organizations of Vienna, Mediz-Pelikan’s daring use of color and rendering of ferocious atmospheric effects in this work assert the uninhibited creative agency of this artist.

Moving into the contemporary sphere, women artists have sought to claim the opportunities denied their predecessors. As they progressed, it was essential that the creative visions of all women artists, including those from marginalized groups, were recognized.