Visual Art Archives - Page 96 of 100

Angelica Kauffman

Often described as ”a pioneer” Angelica Kauffman took everywhere that she went by storm and has a long-lasting legacy. During her lifetime she was one of the highest paid and most sought after portrait artists.

Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi’s legacy has been controversial and complex. Although well-respected and well-known during her lifetime, after her death she was almost entirely omitted from art historical accounts of the period. This is partly because her style was often similar to that of her father and many of her works were mis-attributed to Orazio.

Kara Walker

Walker always insisted that her job was to jolt viewers out of their comfort zone, and even make them angry, once remarking “I make art for anyone who’s forgot what it feels like to put up a fight.” In 2007, TIME magazine featured Walker on its list of the 100 most influential Americans. In 2008 when the artist was still in her thirties, The Whitney held a retrospective of Walker’s work. Though Walker herself is still in mid-career, her illustrious example has emboldened a generation of slightly younger artists to investigate the persistence and complexity of racial stereotyping.

Lee Miller

As her biographer Carolyn Burke states, “to this day, her life inspires features in the same glossy magazines for which she posed…this approach turns the real woman in to a screen onto which beholders project their fantasies”, and further perpetuates the legend of Lee Miller as an “American free spirit wrapped in the body of a Greek goddess”.

Käthe Kollwitz

Kollwitz was instrumental in increasing the visibility and professional validity of women artists in the interwar years. In 1916, she was voted to become the first woman juror of the Berlin New Secession, and in 1919, she became the first woman elected to the Prussian Academy of the Arts (though she refused to use the title of “professor”). She helped found the Society for Women Artists and Friends of Art in 1926 and was appointed the first female department head at the Prussian Academy of Arts in 1928. Kollwitz’s work was internationally renowned in her lifetime.

Caroline Harriet Abraham

When her mother died early in 1848, Caroline’s life began to alter course dramatically. Her considerable artistic talent flourished, and she was able to turn her strong sense of duty and social commitment to better account, especially in the nursing and care of the poor.

Carolee Schneemann

Schneemann’s groundbreaking works on film have been an inspiration for later artists, like Peggy Ahwesh and Abigail Child, and provided them with a historic precedent for feminist filmmaking. Her performance and photographic works also set a precedent for artists like Ana Mendieta and Hannah Wilke to explore ideas ranging from goddess imagery, the generative and subjective female form, and ideals of beauty. Even Annie Sprinkle’s Public Cervix Announcement (1990) would not be possible without Schneemann’s exploration of intimacy in her artwork. Many exhibitions throughout the 1990s and 2000s have been dedicated to feminist artists of these later generations in direct communication with works from Schneemann’s oeuvre. As new generations of artists and women discover her works, the dialogue Schneemann initiated in the early 1960s about women, their bodies, the sensual and the intimate continues to engage viewers, artists, and critics.

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven

Though she is little known, Baroness Elsa Freytag-Loringhoven helped to shape the direction of New York Dada with her eccentric public displays and performances as well as with her desire to fuse her sexuality with her art. In the face of accusations that she was “crazy,” Freytag-Loringhoven would simply state, “Every artist is crazy with respect to ordinary life.” Her gender bending and blatant displays of her sexuality anticipated Feminist art and performance of the mid-20th century. She was an innovative artist whose works paved the way for later experimental Performance art of the late 1950s and 1960s. A renowned poet and a proto-feminist, Elsa and her work have only recently been rediscovered by art historians who have recognized the importance of her contribution to New York Dada. Her provocative poetry was published posthumously in 2011 in Body Sweats: The Uncensored Writings of Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. At the very forefront of developing the readymade and performance art, the Baroness holds a legacy as the “Mama of Dada,” as the New York Times critic Holland Cotter dubbed her.

Francesca Woodman

Even though only a quarter of her 800 photographs have at this point been made public (with the rest remaining private in the artist’s estate maintained by her parents), she is generally considered a prolific young prodigy whose work expresses great emotive depth and continues to challenge perceptions of identity and the medium of photography even to this day. Art critic Michèle Kieffer claims “Woodman has become an icon, a ‘rock star’ of contemporary photography”.

Sofonisba Anguissola

Since her early family portraits, Anguissola’s works were permeated with elements of storytelling that elevated regular, everyday scenes into witty visual plays. Her ability to represent a believable likeness imbued with the personality of the sitter later became one of the hallmarks of Baroque portraiture.