Passive Objects or Active Creators? The History of Women in the Art World

By Margaret Glasgow

If you search the words ‘famous artists throughout history,’ Google, in response, will provide an automated list of fifty names. The first half a dozen are all familiar. Pablo Picasso. Vincent Van Gogh. Claude Monet. Michelangelo. Leonardo Da Vinci. Andy Warhol. These are the names of some of the most talented and celebrated artists in history. But do you notice anything? Yes – all of these artists are men. Out of the fifty names Google generated, forty-six were men. 

Where then, you may be wondering, are all the women? The answer to this question is long and complex. 

Historically, women have faced prejudice and exclusion from all sorts of specialised fields of focus. The art world was no exception, with both social and economic barriers for women to overcome before they could gain entry. In the 18th and 19th centuries, and well into the 20th, women were not provided with the same access to education as men. This lack of education extended to and included arts training. The small number of women that managed to study painting, despite the odds stacked against them, then faced new obstacles. The idea that women would be allowed to paint a nude figure – especially a male nude – was considered immoral, indecent, and completely out of the question. Unable to study the human anatomy alongside men, women were majorly restricted in the subject matter available to them as artists. As a result of this restriction, they were excluded from access to the most prestigious and lucrative commissions.

The list of obstacles does not end there. In the past (and still to some extent today), women have carried the responsibility for raising children, keeping a clean home, supporting their husbands’ work, and maintaining family social status and respectability. Such a domestic burden has often limited the time women can dedicate to their creative endeavours. Of course, even if a woman in previous centuries did have all she needed to pursue a career as an artist, she would likely find the doors barred against her: the great academies and art institutions have historically refused admission to women.

Women were, however, admitted to these great academies and institutions in other forms; women were often the subject matter of the works themselves. Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous group of female artists devoted to fighting sexism and racism within the art world, ran a campaign called ‘Do Women Have to be Naked to Get into the Met?' For the campaign, the group surveyed the works on display in the Met's 19th and 20th century galleries. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the world's largest and finest art museums – surely, it must showcase a diverse collection of artists and works? Sadly, this was not the case. The survey highlighted the fact that less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art sections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art were women. However, 85% of the nudes on display were of female bodies. 

The ‘proper place’ for women in art as muse and object, illustrated in the findings of the Guerrilla Girls’ survey, is a narrative that is perpetuated by a long history of patriarchy and the male gaze. In time, this narrative became a self-perpetuating cycle, in which women were believed to be the passive objects of art while men were the active creators of it. As a result of this narrative, women were not taken seriously as artists themselves. 

Despite the challenges women artists faced and their exclusion from art history, they nevertheless existed and persisted. Museums and galleries around the world are beginning to unearth the work of great female artists who have previously been ignored, and this is in large part due to a rise in the number of female curators and feminist activist groups. For instance, Clara Peeters, a 17th century artist, became the first woman to be given a solo show at the Padro in Madrid in late 2016, finally receiving her due recognition long after her death. Peeters was an innovator in both form and content, using the limitations she faced to push the boundaries of still life painting, one of the few genres open to her as a female artist.

In recent decades, the rise of the feminist art movement has also allowed female artists to rise to fame by harnessing their femininity and lived experiences as women as a source of strength rather than weakness. A famous example is found in Yayoi Kusama’s work (one of the rare four women on Google’s list). 

The reason for ensuring that art history showcases the women who deserve to be remembered is clear. If the history of art doesn’t include a variety of voices from within a culture, then it cannot be said to be a true history of that culture but instead a history of privilege, power, and money.

So, what does it mean to be a woman in the art world? Historically the answer is, at best, underrepresented. At worst, an object. However, thanks to the efforts of groups like the Guerrilla Girls and other activist activists, history is slowly but steadily being reclaimed so that both the forgotten women of the past and women in the art sphere at present can gain the recognition they deserve. 

Where are all the women? They exist. You just have to know where to look.