No Great Women Artists

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It is evitable that the most of the top leaders in the areas of politics, law, and economics are male, and the art world is no exception. Even though more and more female are taking up positions of power in various fields, yet the art scene is still massively dominated by men. If you are asked to name one female artist, the response is likely to be limited compared to a question about male artist since there have been a lot of legendary male artists throughout the history. The next question seems to follow naturally: Have there been not much great women artists?
In an essay titled “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?,” which was published in 1971, Linda Nochlin, one of the leading feminist art scholars, stated that women’s social and …show more content…

Before its flourishing period, the majority of women artists challenged and struggled to participate in the art world that was largely considered as a men’s. In this time, women appeared mainly as models or muses in men’s work. In addition to that, talented female artists were often denied exhibitions not because of the quality of their work but because of their gender. To combat this social perception that women were genetically inferior to men, feminist artists began producing work that shows great interest in “what makes women artists and their art different from male artists and their art” (Feminism & Feminist Art, n.d.). In reported in Huffington Post, Joan Snyder said “Women’s experiences are very different from men’s. As we grow up socially, psychologically and every other way, our experiences are just different. Therefore our art is going to be different” (as cited in Agoston, …show more content…

These were founded for the purpose of not only representing themselves, but also protesting against gallery owners for not exhibiting women’s art. Around the same time in California, Judy Chicago, one of the most prominent early activists in the Movement, established the Feminist Art programs, one of which was Womanhouse. She and another great artist named Miriam Schapiro were co-founder of Womanhouse, which consisted of students working together on exhibits and performance art (Feminism & Feminist Art,

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