The Women Painters Overlooked By Art History

While we can’t undo the past, we can work towards building a richer picture of art history, celebrate the work of artists who were neglected or marginalized during their careers, and be thankful their work wasn’t lost or destroyed. To make a small dent, here are 14 women painters who were working in the 19th and 20th centuries who were forgotten in art history up until recently.

A number of obstacles stood in the way of contemporary women, including van Hemessen, who wished to become painters. Their training would involve the dissection of cadavers and the study of the nude male form, while the system of apprenticeship meant that the aspiring artist would need to live with an older artist for four to five years. This often began from the age of 9 or 15, which made it near impossible for many women to follow this path because other “expected duties” took precedent.

Nevertheless, Gentileschi went on to be the first woman to be admitted to the Florentine Academy of Fine Arts and she also became the head of the household when she separated from her husband, which was very rare at the time. Some of her most powerful works, such as Judith Beheading Holofernes and The Conversion of the Magdalene, focus on the females rather than their male counterparts.

Peeters was unusual for her time simply because she was a female painter, the earliest significant woman painter of the Dutch Golden Age. In contrast to their male counterparts, most female Dutch painters specialized in still lifes, which did not require knowledge of anatomy as this was difficult for female painters to get access to as part of their training.

She excelled as a portrait painter, with her works including oil paintings, watercolors and miniatures. Despite her talent, Capet fell into obscurity after she died. This was for a number of reasons: the fashion for pastels having declined; because most of her works were in private collections that became dispersed over the years; and the fact that society at the time continued to diminish and “forget” the work of female artists.

The artist managed to prove her critics wrong and she was admitted to the Académie Royale, where she exhibited her works and became Peintre des Mesdames (Painter of the Ladies), which meant she was a painter to the king’s aunts.

Only two of her quilts are known to have survived: Bible Quilt (1886) and Pictorial Quilt (1898). Her quilts are considered among the finest examples of 19th-century Southern quilting.

The artist, like many female painters at the time, constantly had to deal with critics questioning her abilities. A common belief at the time was that because she was a woman, there had to have been a man guiding her as no woman had the talent to be successful without a man behind her.

She had a penchant for painting female nude figures, and was controversial in her own time because her lack of training meant she worked outside of traditional standards. This led to raw, powerful works which drew criticism but proved popular: she held four solo exhibitions in her lifetime.

Margaret, with her sister Frances, were students at the Glasgow School of Art studying courses in design. She worked in a variety of media, including metalwork, embroidery, and textiles and later collaborated with her husband, the architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who we’ve come to know better. She was inspired by Celtic imagery, poems by Morris and Rossetti, literature, symbolism, and folklore. Her husband once wrote of her: “Margaret has genius, I have only talent”.

Klint belonged to a group called The Five, a circle of women who shared her belief in the importance of trying to make contact with the so-called High Masters —often by way of séances. Her paintings, which sometimes resemble diagrams, were a visual representation of complex spiritual ideas.

Her fascination with construction allowed her to join other constructivists in absolute rejection of easel painting. In 1921, she turned entirely to industrial design. She excelled in industrial design of clothing and fabrics and produced posters, book designs, ceramics, and photomontages. She died aged just 35 of scarlet fever in 1924 in Moscow.

In regards to her own work, she rarely showed publicly, preferring to exhibit to a private audience. Cushioned by family resources, Stettheimer refrained from self-promotion and considered her painting "an entirely private pursuit". She intended to have her works destroyed after her death, but lucky for us it was a wish defied by her sister Ettie, her executor.

Thomas was an expressionist painter and her style saw her paint bold patterns in bright colors reminiscent of mosaic designs. Her late start in life meant she only exhibited once in her lifetime, just six years before her death in 1972. The show was at the Whitney Museum of American Art and she was the first female African-American artist to have a solo exhibit. Thomas’ work has also been shown at the White House on more than one occasion, with Jimmy Carter and more recently Barack Obama both admirers of her work.