Thames & Hudson World of Art – Women, Art, Society

Published by Thames & Hudson, Women, Art, Society offers an insightful overview of feminist art history – in addition to showcasing female artists and their works, the volume examines, for example, the ways in which the artists have been marginalized throughout the years. The book is written by Professor Emerita at San Francisco State University, Whitney Chadwick, and art historian and curator Flavia Frigeri, and it is part of Thames & Hudson’s acclaimed World of Art series.

Whitney Chadwick’s acclaimed study challenges the assumption that great women artists are exceptions to the rule, who ‘transcended’ their sex to produce major works of art. While acknowledging the many women whose contribution to visual culture since the Middle Ages have often been neglected, Chadwick’s survey amounts to much more than an alternative canon of women artists: it re-examines the works themselves and the ways in which they have been perceived as marginal, often in direct reference to gender. In her disussion of feminism and its influence on such a reappraisal, the author also addresses the closely related issues of ethnicity, class and sexuality.

With a new preface and epilog from an exciting new authority on the history of women artists, this revised edition continues the project of charting the evolution of feminist art history and pedagogy in recent years, revealing how artists have responded to new strategies of feminism for the current moment.