The fight for gender equality is one that continues to rage on. While some people claim that the wage gap is a myth, the truth is that this happens on different levels and professions.
Art is one field where equal salary is still not resolved. Social Currents carried out a study that ended with data being released showing how the average woman in the art world made 20 thousand dollars less than her male counterpart. This investigation not only covered artists but also those on corporate and administrative levels.
Women deserve to be credited for their work, and art is no exception. Here we present some who’ve possessed the talent required to be acclaimed for their labor.
Lee Krasner
A vital figure of modern art, she began her artistic education at a young age. She was unconditionally supportive of her husband Jackson Pollock and his work. However, this also led to living under the shadow of his fame despite her abstract expressionist work being superior to her spouse’s and exhibited in several museums and galleries.
Maud Wagner
The first female professional tattoo artist in history, she learned the craft of body art from her husband. This led to her being a pioneer in an industry dominated by men.
Margaret Bourke-White
A professional photographer who was a USA correspondent during the Second World War, she was fearless and not intimidated to be in the midst of combat areas.
Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
This painter from the late Baroque period was Marie Antoinette’s personal portrait artist. Her body of work includes over 600 portraits and 200 landscapes. She was widely famous during the time of the French queen, yet she seems to have been forgotten by recent Art History.
Mary Cassat
This Impressionist painter, who became an artist despite her father’s disapproval, enjoyed portraying women and young children as the subjects of her works.
Harriet Powers
Her story is one of passion and overcoming all odds. Born into slavery at a Georgia plantation, she became a free woman following the American Civil War. She spent her life creating quilts with appliques depicting Bible stories.
Gertrude Stein
This poet and writer from the early twentieth century was a woman who generated controversy through her works. It’s believed she was the one who coined the term Lost Generation.
Georgia O’Keeffe
This famous painter’s work is easily distinguished because of its usual subjects: abstract flowers, American modernism, landscapes, and regional scenery.
Caterina van Hemessen
This Flemish Renaissance painter was the first woman to create a self-portrait in front of her easel.
Marianne North
She was a biologist but also a botanical artist during the Victorian era. She traveled with her father all over the world studying plants and capturing through her art the world around her.
Cindy Sherman
This American filmmaker and photographer’s work encompasses from the Postwar period to themes relating to women, media, and the nature of society. Her most used resource is the self-portrait.
Selma Lagerlöf
In 1909, this Swedish writer was the first woman to obtain the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her writing evolved thanks to her work as a teacher, and she began selling her work as a way to pay off her family’s debts.
Maddalena Casulana
A composer and songstress during the Renaissance, her musical style is slightly contrapuntal and reminiscent of works from Luca Marenzio. She became the first woman in the Western world to have her musical pieces printed and published.
Hildegard von Bingen
During the twelfth century she received Papal permission to preach the Bible in places that were difficult to access, a task only given to males until then. She was the first woman to describe the sensation of an orgasm, created a language for nuns to communicate among themselves and was highly interested in Medicine, Botany, and Biology.
Berthe Morisot
Another Impressionist painter, she was influenced because of her friendship with her brother-in-law Edouard Manet. Her art is centered on home scenarios and family portraits. She was one of the first women to have her work exhibited in the Paris Salon between 1864 and 1868.
Translated by María Suárez
