The Story of Art Without Men
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $22.99
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
Instant New York Times bestseller
One of Vanity Fair's Favorite Books to Gift • One of PureWow's 42 Books to Gift This Year • One of Kirkus's Best Books of 2023
The story of art as it’s never been told before, from the Renaissance to the present day, with more than 300 works of art.
How many women artists do you know? Who makes art history? Did women even work as artists before the twentieth century? And what is the Baroque anyway?
Guided by Katy Hessel, art historian and founder of @thegreatwomenartists, discover the glittering paintings by Sofonisba Anguissola of the Renaissance, the radical work of Harriet Powers in the nineteenth-century United States and the artist who really invented the “readymade.” Explore the Dutch Golden Age, the astonishing work of postwar artists in Latin America, and the women defining art in the 2020s. Have your sense of art history overturned and your eyes opened to many artforms often ignored or dismissed. From the Cornish coast to Manhattan, Nigeria to Japan, this is the history of art as it’s never been told before.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Overlooked female artists take their rightful place in the pantheon in art historian Hessel's magisterial debut. Beginning with the Renaissance, Hessel covers "significant shifts or moments" in mostly Western art history, including the French Revolution and how its refounded artists' academies, which had been rid of aristocratic associations, enabled an "influx of middle class female artists." Elsewhere, Hessel profiles the post-WWI birth of Dadaism and how its "fearless" female adherents such as German Hannah Höch, known for her political collages, and multidisciplinary Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp were "unafraid to poke fun at political figures and caricature their male contemporaries." Sections on the 19th century cover female contributors to movements such as impressionism and surrealism, and discuss key themes, including civil rights art and queer art. While Hessel touches on the barriers that kept female artists from mainstream success, she devotes most of the book to analyzing their works, contending, for example, that 20th-century Welsh-born painter Sylvia Sleigh "repossess the male-dominated" conventions of art history by depicting "men in provocative and Venus-like poses." Hessel makes room for an impressively wide array of art forms, including fiber works and quilting, and is careful to situate her subjects within social and political contexts, instead of framing them as "the wife of, the muse of, the model of" more celebrated male contemporaries. The result is a vital and necessary corrective. Photos.
