Women Artists - from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century

In a profession historically dominated by men, how have women managed to influence the visual arts over the centuries? Examine both the lives and works of prominent women artists from Greco-Roman times until the Nineteenth Century. Why did the University town of Bologna produce so many women artists? What role did the Venetian artist, Rosalba Carriera, play in popularising the medium of pastel in Europe? How do we understand the cultural role of women in the arts within the context of the Eighteenth Century Enlightenment? Or how did the African-Native American, Edmonia Lewis, establish a successful career in Rome? Over three lectures, we will explore all these questions and more, as they relate to the identity of women in the visual arts, prior to the twentieth century.


DELIVERY MODE

Online Delivery


COURSE OUTLINE

  • Women Artists - from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century: Pliny the Elder’s accounts of Greco-Roman women artists in his Natural History, Sister Plautilla Nelli (1524–1588), Dominican Nun and painter in Florence, Women artists in the University town of Bologna - Properzia de’ Rossi (c. 1490-1530), Sofonisba Anguissola (1532-1625), Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614), Elisabetta Sirani (1638-1665), Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 - 1654) – Master of the Baroque
  • Women Artists - The Enlightenment: Rosalba Carriera (1673-1757), innovator in pastel, Angelica Kauffman (1741-1807), renowned history painter, Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1755-1842), portrait painter to Queen Marie Antoinette.
  • Women Artists - The Nineteenth Century: Constance Mayer (1775 - 1821) and French Neoclassicism, Edmonia Lewis (1844 – 1907), African-Native American sculptor in Rome, Elizabeth Thompson (1846 – 1933), Battle artist of the British Empire


PLANNED LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

  1. Gain an understanding of how women artists have successfully established themselves as both innovators and critical cultural catalysts within the history of art.
  2. Gain an understanding of how women artists have developed careers within the context of historical discrimination, prejudice and sexism.
  3. Identify how gender is expressed and defined by visual culture.


SUGGESTED READING

  • Buick, Kirsten Pai, Child of the Fire – Mary Edmonia Lewis and the Problem of Art History’s Black and Indian Subject, (Duke University Press, 2010).
  • Cherry, Deborah, Painting Women: Victorian Women Artists, (London: Routledge, 1993).
  • Dabbs, Julia., Life Stories of Women Artists, 1550–1800: An Anthology, (Routledge, 2009).
  • Jacobs, Fredrika H., Sofonisba Anguissola: The First Great Woman Artist of the Renaissance, (Rizzoli International Publications, 1992).
  • Henderson, Harry and Albert., The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis, (Esquiline Hill Press, 2012).
  • The Memoirs Of Madame Vigée Lebrun, trans. Lionel Strachey (George Braziller, 2001).
  • Locker, Jesse M., Artemisia Gentileschi: The Language of Painting, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015).
  • Murphy, Caroline P., Lavinia Fontana: A Painter and Her Patrons in Sixteenth-century Bologna, (Yale University, 2003).
  • Modesti, Adelina, Elisabetta Sirani 'Virtuosa': Women’s Cultural Production in Early Modern Bologna, (Prima Publication, 2014).
  • Nelson, Jonathan K., (ed), Plautilla Nelli, 1524-1588: The Prioress Painter of Renaissance Florence, (Syracuse University Press: 2008).
  • Rosenthal, Angela, Angelica Kauffman: Art and Sensibility, (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006).
  • Usherwood, Paul, and Jenny Spencer-Smith, Lady Butler, Battle Artist, 1846-1933, (Gloucester: Sutton, 1987).


When:
Thursday 29 July - 12 August 2021
1.00 PM - 2.30 PM

Where:
WEA Sydney
72 Bathurst Street