"This 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 contributions 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 discussion of feminism and its influence on such a reappraisal, the author also addresses the closely related issues of ethnicity, class, and sexuality." "This expanded edition is brought up to date in the light of the most recent developments in contemporary art.…
"Absolutely. This book was first published in 1990, when I was 18. I first saw it towards the end of my undergraduate degree at the Courtauld, and I was kind of astounded—because here was a whole book of artists I’d never heard of. The volume I have is the fifth edition; it’s much fatter, with even more artists in it. It’s terrific to see it still in print. It’s from that fabulous introductory series from Thames and Hudson, ‘World of Art’, where they get the best writers to write clear, accessible, no-footnotes volumes on art. I really appreciate writers who can do that. Whitney Chadwick is a great exponent of writing on women’s art . I’d never heard of Sofonisba Anguissola —who features in my book—before I read Women, Art, and Society . Whitney puts each artist in context, without making a campaign that these women were unfairly overlooked. She just shows they were great artists, and gives them room to come to life in her pages. It’s also really well illustrated. I think it’s the best primer out there on women’s art, although there are lots of new examples—Katie Hessel’s The Story of Art Without Men , which is just out; Jennifer Higgie’s The Mirror and the Palette , which looks at women’s self-portraiture… These are great books that, if we really go back, have come out of the Whitney Chadwick model. And that book itself came out of the work that Griselda Pollock and Linda Nochlin did. I see this as a really important book, and a great entry point into women artists, if you want to read about them in isolation. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . I hope where art history is going, women will come back into the narrative as equals in a mixed-gender volume, and that’s certainly what I tried to write in my book. But while there isn’t a level playing field, these books are invaluable."
