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“La Lavandera (The Washerwoman)” by Anne Kutka McCosh (American) – Acrylic on canvas / 1964 – Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (Eugene, Oregon) #WomenInArt #WomensArt #WomenArtists #HerStory #WomenPaintingWomen #JordanSchnitzerMuseumofArt #UofO #AnneKutkaMcCosh #BlueskyArt #art #artText #artwork
Painted in 1964, “La Lavandera” exemplifies American artist Anne Kutka McCosh’s transition from representational realism toward a simplified, modernist design language shaped by her years in Oregon and her study of Mexican genre scenes. The title, in Spanish, honors the dignity of women’s manual labor, echoing post WWII concerns with domestic visibility for women. A woman with deep brown skin and warm undertones balances a bundled load of laundry wrapped in white cloth on the crown of her head. Her right arm lifts, fingers grazing the bundle’s edge to steady it; her left arm bends upward, hand gathering a blue headscarf at her collar. She wears a softly lit yellow-green blouse and a dark blue skirt/apron that catches chalky highlights. Her partially-shadowed face tilts slightly to our left with a faint, working-day smile. The background is a swirl of indigo, teal, moss green, and smoky brown that reads as open air rather than an interior. Broad, velvety strokes model volume while keeping forms simplified; the bright white bundle sets the composition’s apex, radiating light down across scarf, shoulder, and skirt. McCosh, born in Cleveland in 1902 and trained at the Cleveland School of Art, taught and exhibited widely after moving to Eugene, Oregon in 1939 with her husband, artist David McCosh. Her work often portrayed everyday Northwestern life such as gardens, interiors, and working women with a compositional balance learned from regional modernism and WPA-era social realism. By the mid-1960s she had established herself as a leading Pacific Northwest painter and mentor at the University of Oregon. “La Lavandera” reflects her empathy for women’s endurance and the beauty of ordinary gesture: “I am moved by the simple arrangement of life,” she once noted, “the way work itself becomes art.”
October 14, 2025 at 10:58 PM Everybody can reply
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“Reilly” by Leah McCann (American) – Oil pastel on paper / 2023 – Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (62nd Young Arkansas Artists Exhibition, Little Rock) #WomenInArt #art #artText #artwork #WomanArtist #WomensArt #BlueskyArt #WomenPaintingWomen #StudentArt #HighSchoolArt #ArkansasMuseumofFineArts
A young woman lies diagonally across a wide meadow dense with tall green grass and spring wildflowers of pale yellows, purples, and soft blues clustering around her hair and shoulders. Most of her body has almost been absorbed by the meadow except her head, shoulders, and parts of her arms. Her pale skin glows in the warm afternoon light as loose strands of brown hair frame a resting face turned to the side, eyes closed as if feeling the sun rather than watching it. Quick pastel strokes suggest both texture and wind movement that disappears in a blur of color, blending figure and landscape. Nothing feels staged: the marks are layered and visible, the texture of oil pastel creating a living surface that catches light differently from each angle with distinct tonal contrast between the figure’s outline and the green meadow around her. Leah McCann’s “Reilly” captures a moment between consciousness and dream, when identity and environment seemingly dissolve into one another. Created while she was a 10th-grade student at Little Rock Central High School under art educator Jason McCann, the work’s title may reference a friend or self-portrait surrogate. The reclining pose and fusion with nature evoke classical pastoral repose but through a distinctly contemporary, adolescent lens that is honest, unfiltered, and intimate. Her work and pastel’s immediacy mirrors the emotional directness of youth as the field becomes both a sanctuary and likely a metaphor for inner growth. Reilly stood out in the 62nd Young Arkansas Artists Exhibition for its technical maturity and quiet assurance, reminding viewers that serenity itself can be radical. “When I draw,” McCann noted in a local student-art feature, “I’m trying to hold on to the feeling before it changes.” Her work invites us to pause with her in that fragile, luminous stillness between childhood and becoming an adult.
October 13, 2025 at 7:34 PM Everybody can reply
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“The Green Sari” by Irma Stern (South African) – Oil on canvas / 1936 – Irma Stern Museum (Cape Town, South Africa) #WomenInArt #WomanArtist #IrmaStern #WomensArt #WomenPaintingWomen #WomenArtists #SouthAfricanArt #SouthAfricanArtist #BlueskyArt #OilPainting #FemaleArtist #art #artText #artwork
Painted in 1936, this portrait reflects artist Irma Stern’s fascination with the diverse communities of South Africa and her commitment to character over costume. Critics often note her “dignified” portrayals; here, the calm face, lowered eyes, and reed-filled setting suggest poise rather than spectacle. The jewelry and fine sari imply a sitter of some standing, likely from the Indian community established in Natal by the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Stern’s impasto scraped and laid on in quick, directional marks keeps the surface alive, especially in the sari’s creamy folds and the reeds’ vertical energy. A woman appears against tall, pale-green reeds, her head tilted slightly left, gaze lowered and thoughtful. Her medium-brown skin is modeled with thick, lively strokes. Her eyelids are heavy, almond-shaped, with dark lashes and a soft highlight along the brow. A deep-green sari blouse and a creamy pallu drapes diagonally across her chest, edged with a fine green line. A single red stud earring catches the light while at her neck hangs a pendant with a rosy stone in a gold setting. Her black hair is pulled back into a low knot. The background is a field of vertical, grass-like strokes, echoing the sari’s green and framing her quiet, dignified presence. Stern once wrote that travel and encounter “opened new doors of color”; even at home, she sought subjects whose presence sparked that chromatic charge. Exhibited as “An Indian Woman” at the Irma Stern Museum in 2020 and later titled “The Green Sari,” the work carries a layered history (it earlier appeared at auction as “Malay Lady in Green”), but Stern’s intent holds steady: to honor a modern woman with individuality and grace. As her reputation grew, Stern balanced local portraits with journeys abroad, refining a palette of greens, yellows, and warm earth tones that became signature in her mature style.
October 11, 2025 at 4:19 AM Everybody can reply
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“To Tell Them There It’s Got To” by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (British) – Oil on canvas / 2013 – The Box (Plymouth, England) #WomenInArt #WomenArtists #WomensArt #FemalePainter #LynetteYiadom-Boakye #Yiadom-Boakye #TheBox #art #artText #artwork #blueskyArt #BlackWoman #OilPainting #WomenPaintingWomen
Born in London to Ghanaian parents, British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s 2013 painting “To Tell Them There It’s Got To” exemplifies her depiction of fictional individuals rendered with the dignity and complexity often denied to Black subjects in European portraiture. Her titles act as poems rather than labels: “an extra mark,” she says, “not an explanation.” The phrase “to tell them” implies address and assertion, while “it’s got to” carries urgency or inevitability like an unfinished thought, echoing the figure’s quiet refusal to fully reveal themselves. The ambiguity invites us to ask: Who are they? What is it? That unanswerable tension is central to her art. We see a solitary Black figure in profile, shoulders turned gently away from us and head inclined toward an unseen light. Deep umber, olive, and graphite tones shape the woman’s smooth skin and softly curling hair, merging into a dark, painterly background. Her turtleneck shirt nearly disappears into the same shadowed palette, but faint strokes at the collar and jaw catch reflected light, suggesting quiet movement and breath. Just the stillness of a person who exists within, not against, darkness is presented. The brushwork alternates between thin, translucent washes and thicker impasto, leaving visible gestures of creation. This intimacy feels private but alive, like a moment caught between thought and turning. Yiadom-Boakye studied at Central Saint Martins, Falmouth, and the Royal Academy Schools. By the time she painted this work, she had been shortlisted for the Turner Prize and was reshaping the language of contemporary portraiture. Her figures neither narrate nor protest, but they simply are, existing beyond stereotype or demand. The painting is housed at The Box, Plymouth, England (a museum devoted to reimagining British history and amplifying diverse and contemporary voices).
October 9, 2025 at 4:34 AM Everybody can reply
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"Dupatta #10" by Shabana Kauser (British–American) - Oil on canvas / 2022 - Fort Smith Regional Art Museum (Arkansas) #WomenInArt #WomenPaintingWomen #WomanArtist #art #artText #artwork #BlueskyArt #FortSmithRegionalArtMuseum #FSRAM #PakistaniArt #Kauser #WomensArt #FemaleArtist #ShabanaKauser #दुपट्टा
The Pakistani heritage of British-born, U.S.-based artist Shabana Kauser’s "Dupatta" series centers the everyday elegance of South Asian women, translating fabric, craft, and memory into contemporary portraiture. Working from real garments and jewelry, she sources and stages herself, the artist builds skin and textile textures in meticulous layers of oil, then accents threads and sequins with needle-fine brushwork. The dupatta (दुपट्टा) scarf is ubiquitous across South Asia and signals heritage, celebration, and belonging; here it becomes a luminous halo that dignifies an anonymous sitter rather than exoticizing her. A beautiful South Asian woman is shown in serene right-profile against a calm teal field. A sheer sky-blue dupatta, netted and edged with gold zari, drapes over her dark hair and shoulders, its surface crowded with embroidered floral sprays and tiny sequins catching soft light. A teardrop maang-tikka head ornament, enameled in blue and gold, rests at her hairline while a filigree necklace glints at her collarbone above a white blouse. Her medium-brown skin is modeled in layered oils and her closed lips are a deep rose. The veil’s scalloped border frames her face, guiding our eyes to her quiet, self-possessed gaze. In 2022 Kauser presented her first solo museum exhibition at the Fort Smith Regional Art Museum, where works from the series (including Dupatta #10) connected immigrant stories across Arkansas audiences. British-born and now based in Northwest Arkansas, Kauser often describes her practice as a dialogue between her parents’ textile world and her own immigrant journey: portraiture that invites viewers “to examine each thread, its imperfections and uniqueness,” and to recognize the women whose beauty and labor sustain community.
October 8, 2025 at 5:35 PM Everybody can reply
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“Makahiya VI” by Florence Solis (Filipino–Canadian) - Acrylic on canvas / 2025 - EXPO CHICAGO, Navy Pier (Chicago, Illinois) #WomenInArt #WomanArtist #WomenPaintingWomen #WomensArt #art #artText #artwork #FlorenceSolis #Solis #ExpoChicago #MissionProjects #AcrylicArt #FilipinoArtist #CanadianArtist
A beautiful young woman facing calmly to our right, looks ahead with dark almond eyes as straight bangs curve across her forehead. Her features are softly modeled, emerging from a luminous field of blue-violet. From her head, lavish, roped waves of hair envelop her body like a cone. Threaded through the locks are countless fine, pale leaflets and beadlike specks like seeds that glint against the cool monochrome. No clothing is visible as her hair gathers and folds like a shawl, suggesting both warmth and weight. The background is a smooth gradient from indigo to orchid for a still, devotional composition. The overall effect is quiet, protective, and intensely focused on surface via glossy strands, delicate leaves, and a tender, private gaze. Filipino–Canadian artist Florence Solis names this work for makahiya (Mimosa pudica), whose leaflets fold at a touch like an image of shyness that doubles as strategy. Her protagonists are modern icons built from digital collages, then translated into saturated acrylics, where hair, veils, and woven textures act as armor and constraint. She draws on Filipino folklore and craft, especially the delicacy and resilience of piña weaving, to think about the structures that shape women’s lives: “Threads bind, but they also connect.” In Solis’s words, “Filipino women, much like the makahiya, have been taught to yield, to soften, to take up less space,” yet “beneath this quietness lies an undeniable force … that persists, adapts, and reclaims space.” The interlaced hair hints at touch-sensitivity and vigilance; the single-color glow reads like moonlight on water. Shown with “The Mission Projects” at EXPO CHICAGO, “Makahiya VI” holds the paradox at the heart of her practice of vulnerability poised as power to ask whether these bindings are sanctuary, confinement, or the luminous seam where self-possession is made visible.
October 7, 2025 at 1:30 AM Everybody can reply
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“Well Prepared and Maladjusted” by Amy Sherald (American) – Oil on canvas / 2008 – Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) #WomenInArt #WomenPaintingWomen #WomenArtists #art #artText #artwork #WomensArt #AfricanAmericanArt #AfricanAmericanArtist #WhitneyMuseumofAmericanArt #AmySherald #Sherald
A tall Black woman stands against a vivid, turquoise-blue ground mottled with faint, watery red drips. American artist Amy Sherald renders her skin in nuanced grays of soft charcoal, pewter, and silver so that tonal shifts depict her cheekbones, brows, and hands. Her gaze meets ours directly, steady and calm. She wears a short-sleeved, pink blouse scattered with small white polka dots and tied with a large bow at the collar, paired with a plain white skirt. Her bare arms rest alongside her body. Her short natural hair forms a simple silhouette. The composition gives primacy to presence, poise, and style. Painted soon after Sherald completed her training in Baltimore, this work marks the emergence of key strategies that would define her practice. She had encountered the sitter, a curatorial intern at the Walters Art Museum, and was struck by her height, hairstyle, and thrifted polka-dot outfit: “I saw my story in her,” Sherald recalls. Photographing the model and then translating the likeness to paint, she eliminated place to focus on personhood. The grayscale skin is a deliberate nod to the history of black-and-white photography and self-representation. Sherald refuses to let color stand in for race, inviting viewers to read character, not stereotype. The title, lifted from a poem, functions like one of Sherald’s “small poems,” offering a runway into the painting’s psychology: a subject who is impeccably composed yet out of step with rigid social expectations. The speckled blue ground, with its faint reddish drips, signals an earlier phase in Sherald’s evolution, before she moved toward flatter planes of color; nevertheless, the essentials are here: stylish self-presentation, quiet authority, and a reparative re-centering of Black life. Sherald has said her mission is “to put more complex stories of Black life in the forefront of people’s minds and on the walls of museums…to take up space and reclaim time.”
October 1, 2025 at 9:43 PM Everybody can reply
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"The persistence of memory when we are just able to forget" by Carmen Chami (Mexican) - Oil on canvas / 2023 - Evansville Museum of Art (Indiana) #WomenInArt #art #WomensArt #CarmenChami #WomanArtist #Chami #artText #WomenArtists #EvansvilleMuseumofArt #WomenPaintingWomen #MexicanArtist #memory
A wide, horizontal canvas stages two women in a spare, timeless interior. At left, one figure reclines languidly across a mound of stacked books, her body sinking into uneven spines, her eyes closed reflecting inward. She wears a luminous cream gown whose surface is patterned with golden outlines of human heads, each rendered as a miniature portrait. These heads spread across the fabric like a decorative motif, turning her dress into an archive of remembered lives. At right, another woman sits upright in a purple sleeveless tanktop pulling a single pale thread; it unravels from the gown and curls toward the floor, disrupting the cohesion of the faces. Together, the books and the dress mark two fragile repositories of memory ... one textual, one embodied ... held in balance at the edge of forgetting. The painting’s title echoes Salvador Dalí’s "Persistence of Memory," but here clocks are replaced by human presence and cultural inheritance. Chami has long emphasized that “the body, with all its nuances, is the main protagonist.” In this painting, the body literally carries memory, clothed in countless lives, even as another threatens to undo them. The act of unraveling suggests grief, erasure, and the precarious labor of preservation, while the book pile across the canvas insists on the weight of recorded knowledge. Evansville Museum’s catalogue noted this precise drama: one figure “lounging on a mound of books,” the other “unravels thread from [an] embroidered gown.” Born in Mexico City and based in Chicago, Chami studied conservation and draws on Baroque techniques to bring Old Master rigor to contemporary realist narratives. Her works, shown internationally and including the official 2018 Mexican presidential portrait, weave allegory, symbolism, and psychological depth. Here, memory persists not through clocks but through bodies, books, and fragile threads to remind us that what we inherit, we also risk unraveling.
September 25, 2025 at 7:00 PM Everybody can reply
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"Light Of The Lit Wick" by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (British) - Oil on linen / 2017 - Jack Shainman Gallery (New York) #WomenInArt #art #WomanArtist #artText #WomenPaintingWomen #BritishArtist #LynetteYiadom-Boakye #Yiadom-Boakye #WomenArtists #BlueskyArt #OilPainting #dancer #dancing #WomensArt
A beautiful strong Black woman in profile faces left, black hair drawn into a smooth bun. She wears a bright white leotard that arcs diagonally across the canvas. Both arms rise gracefully overhead, wrists bent, fingers extended. At the tip of one finger glimmers a faint golden flame. Behind her float two disks: one amber circle glowing near her head, one deep black near her torso. The background is a mottled olive-green, brushed loosely, with no horizon line. Born in London to Ghanaian parents who emigrated to Britain in the 1960s, Yiadom-Boakye identifies with a “third culture” space: British by nationality, Ghanaian by heritage. This dual grounding informs her art without prescribing it. She paints fictional Black figures, not portraits of real people, so that her subjects remain free from a historical gaze and the expectation to represent trauma or biography. Instead, they exist as autonomous presences, much like characters in literature, carrying poise, wit, and dignity. In "Light Of The Lit Wick," the dancer’s uplifted arms and the hovering disks turn the act of movement into metaphor. The “lit wick” evokes illumination, ignition, and the spark of imagination. The work resists a fixed story, instead opening a space where we can project our own interpretations like seeing a dancer at rehearsal, a figure summoning light, or an allegory of resilience. Yiadom-Boakye’s artwork reflects her parallel life as a writer. Many of her paintings are completed in a single day, preserving urgency and rhythm, akin to a poem caught in motion. She has explained that painting allows her to explore what she cannot put into words, while writing articulates what paint cannot capture. Her titles, often lyrical, further expand her figures into the realm of metaphor. "Light Of The Lit Wick" embodies her larger project: to center Black figures in spaces of beauty, ambiguity, and imagination, affirming their presence as essential and unbounded.
September 24, 2025 at 7:13 PM Everybody can reply
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“Untitled” by N. Cecilia Kettunen (American) - Oil on canvas / 1941 - DeVos Art Museum (Marquette, Michigan) #WomenInArt #WomanArtist #art #WomensArt #artText #WomenPaintingWomen #CeciliaKettunen #Kettunen #NMU #DeVosArtMuseum #FemaleArtist #BlueskyArt #NorthernMichiganUniversity #WomenArtists
This vibrant oil painting by American artist N. Cecilia Kettunen (the N. is for Nana) shows a Black woman in right profile against a warm golden background. Her head is turned slightly upward, her expression calm yet contemplative. She has short, close-cropped black hair and vivid red lips. Draped across her shoulder is a white cloth tinged with pale blue shadows, lending a sense of classical poise. A gold necklace rests at her collarbone, catching the light. The background is softly textured and luminous, framing her with quiet strength and dignity. Born in 1896, Kettunen was an American painter of Finnish descent who built her career in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she received formal training in portraiture and academic painting. Influenced by both European traditions and the American regionalist spirit, she refined a style that combined careful draftsmanship with an empathetic attention to her sitters. Painted in 1941, this portrait demonstrates her ability to merge classical composition with modern restraint. The figure’s profile recalls Renaissance portraiture, while the simplified background reflects modernist tendencies that prioritized presence over setting. Importantly, Kettunen chose to portray a Black sitter with dignity and individuality, countering the stereotypes that were, and in many ways still are, pervasive in American art. Throughout her career, Kettunen remained active in regional exhibitions and was committed to community art education, teaching and mentoring younger artists. Posthumously, she has been acknowledged as part of the generation of women and immigrant artists who enriched American art outside the major coastal centers. Her legacy reflects both her technical skill and her humanistic vision—painting people not as types, but as individuals worthy of remembrance.
September 1, 2025 at 4:59 PM Everybody can reply
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"Untitled" by B. Prabha (Indian) - Oil on canvas / Undated - Kerala Museum (Kochi, India) #WomenInArt #art #WomanArtist #WomensArt #FemaleArtist #artwork #artText #WomenArtists #IndianArt #IndianArtist #B.Prabha #Prabha #KeralaMuseum #WomenPaintingWomen #BlueskyArt #Indian #bskyart #PaintingofaWoman
B. Prabha, born Prabha Agge in 1933, in the village of Bela near Nagpur in Maharashtra, India, depicts a rural woman seated in profile against a pale, open background. She wears a green top with a black sari draped across her body, the fabric streaming diagonally in the wind. She has gold earrings, bangles, and a small orange flower tucked into the bun of her black hair. One hand rests near a rounded clay pot beside her. Her elongated neck and arms emphasize grace and stillness, while her gaze is turned away, suggesting peaceful thoughtfulness. Prabha’s "Untitled" embodies her signature vision of rural womanhood. The composition centers on a single seated figure, shown in profile, her elongated form outlined against a pared-down sky-like ground. A black and green sari billows diagonally across the canvas, counterbalancing the calm horizontality of the background. Subtle accents—a flower tucked into her hair, gold jewelry, the curve of an earthen pot—anchor the woman’s identity in everyday village life. Prabha often declared that her aim was to paint “the trauma and tragedy of women,” yet her canvases also convey strength and dignity. Here, the woman’s averted gaze and wind-caught drape suggest a pause between labors: a quiet interiority rarely acknowledged in representations of working-class women. The restrained palette and stylized elongation transform a simple moment into something monumental, allowing viewers to reflect on endurance, beauty, and resilience. Influenced by legendary Indian artist Amrita Sher-Gil and European modernists, Prabha forged her own visual language—elegant, empathetic, and socially attuned. This painting exemplifies her lifelong commitment to depicting the realities of women in rural India, preserving their presence in India’s modernist canon while insisting on their individuality and humanity.
August 27, 2025 at 11:25 PM Everybody can reply
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Untitled Portrait by Mangala Bayi Thampuratti (Indian) - Oil on canvas / Early 1900s - Kerala Museum (Kochi, India) #WomenInArt #WomensArt #WomanArtist #PortraitofaWoman #WomenArtists #art #artText #PortraitofaWoman #HerStory #WomenPaintingWomen #MangalaBayiThampuratti #MangalaBayi #KeralaMuseum
The first Indian women artist to have a studio of her own in the 19th century was Mangala Bayi Thampuratti. She was taught to paint by her uncle Raja Raja Varma while her older brother Raja Ravi Varma often assisted in improving her skills. Known as Mangala Bayi, she depicted domestic and devotional themes in her paintings and is well-known for her portraits of women and children. Though Mangala Bayi painted with equal proficiency as her brothers and in the same Western academic artistic style, the social structures of the era prevented women to pursue art as a profession, and so she painted only as a "hobby." Therefore, her works remain mostly in the homes of private collectors. This "Untitled Portrait" portrays a serene yet dignified mature South Asian woman adorned with traditional markings and jewelry, seated in contemplation. It's a wonderful example of Mangala Bayi’s refined artistic sensibilities from the early 1900s. It is frequently misattributed as a painting of Kalyanikutty Ammachi of Nagercoil Ammaveedu, consort of Maharajah Ayilyam Tirunal of Travancore; however, it depicts Ikku Amma Tampuran (Subhadra Tampuran), a distinguished scholar and prolific composer in Sanskrit and Malayalam. Tampuran was the daughter of Kunjipilla Amma Tampuran and Kunju Namboothiripad of Koodalattupuram Illam. While the precise circumstances surrounding the commission remain unclear, this portrait—along with another of Ikku Amma’s daughter, Manku Tampuran, painted by K.R. Ravi Varma (Mangala Bayi’s son)—suggests a close relationship between the Kilimanur and Cochin royal families. An old group photograph from Ravi Varma’s studio highlights this connection and features Ikku Amma Tampuran seated in this exact pose at the center, with her daughters on either side (Manku Tampuran seated to her left) and her two sons standing behind her plus a young Kerala Varma VII, popularly known as Aikya Keralam Tampuran, the Maharaja of Cochin.
August 26, 2025 at 6:32 AM Everybody can reply
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"The Hourglass" by Evelyn De Morgan (English) - Oil on canvas / 1904-1905 - De Morgan Foundation (Barnsley, England) #WomenInArt #WomanArtist #art #WomensArt #artText #FemaleArtist #WomenPaintingWomen #EnglishArtist #WomenArtists #EvelynDeMorgan #DeMorgan #DeMorganCollection #EnglishArt #JaneMorris
English painter Evelyn De Morgan (Mary Evelyn Pickering) features legendary Pre-Raphaelite muse Jane Morris (Jane Burden) who came out of "retirement" to pose for De Morgan including this thematic painting of a regal woman sitting pensively on an ornate throne, touching an hourglass, while an angelic figure plays a flute in a doorway, hinting at the passage of time and the fleeting nature of life. In 1924, De Morgan's sister British writer Anna Marie Diana Wilhelmina Stirling (aka Wilhelmina Stirling and the alias Percival Pickering), wrote that De Morgan identified the painting as "an echo of a movement in the Waldstein Sonata (Piano Sonata No. 21) of Beethoven." This is her description: "In an ancient chair, inlaid with ivory, a woman is seen seated. Behind her on the wall are glowing tapestries; a gold lamp of medieval design is suspended above her head. Her draperies, in wonderful hues of yellow and russet bronze, are thickly sewn with pearls, the delineation of which in correct perspective constituted a tour de force. Jewels of barbaric design accentuate the richness of her attire and gleam again from her quaint head-dress, beneath which shows the first indication of age -- her whitening locks. Meanwhile, with a brooding sorrow, her gaze is fixed upon an hourglass, clasped in her slender fingers, wherein the sands are swiftly running out: at her feet is a dying rose, and close to her lies a book on which are visible the words -- Mos Janua Vitae -- Death is the portal of life. So, too, unheeded by her, outside the open doorway stands the figure of life, the Immortal, piping joyously in the sunlight in robes of azure amid the blossoming flowers of spring." Jane Morris was an accomplished English embroiderer in the Arts and Crafts movement, but is fondly remembered as the model who embodied the Pre-Raphaelite ideal of beauty as the muse for 20 Dante Gabriel Rossetti paintings. She was also the model for De Morgan's popular 1903 "The Love Potion" painting.
August 18, 2025 at 5:47 PM Everybody can reply
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“Daphne” by Elizabeth Colomba (French) - Oil and gold leaf on canvas / 2015 - Studio Museum in Harlem (New York) #WomenInArt #art #WomanArtist #ElizabethColomba #artwork #Colomba #WomensArt #WomenArtists #StudioMuseum #daphne #mythology #femaleartist #WomenPaintingWomen #BlueskyArt #bskyart #beauty
In her series “Mythology,” French artist Elizabeth Colomba looks to Greek mythology for inspiration. Here, she references the tale of the naiad (a freshwater nymph) Daphne and the gods Cupid and Apollo. Colomba reshapes the myth by positioning a Black woman as the primary subject of the painting, thereby countering the erasure of Black bodies from Classical antiquity narratives. In Daphne, Colomba represents the naiad holding an arrow, Apollo's lyre as the pedestal of the table behind her, and, further in the background, the branches of a laurel tree, into which Daphne is transformed during the climax of her story. Colomba’s striking figurative paintings weave Black women into highly detailed compositions through historical European imagery with a fresh, imaginative twist— these Black women are not models or servants painted by white artists. Colomba controls their narratives in a compassionately humanizing approach, giving them a meaningful, full-bodied purpose, an engagement beyond beautiful, exotic prop. “Daphne” showcases a Black woman, the central figure, standing in a richly decorated room. She is dressed in a sumptuous, long gown. The bodice is a dark olive-green with a complex brocade pattern and is cinched at the waist with a silver ribbon that forms a bow in the front. The long skirt is a deep, reddish-maroon, appearing to be made of a heavy, luxurious fabric that drapes elegantly around her. She wears large, circular earrings contrasting against her dark skin. Her onyx hair is styled neatly into a bun. Daphne’s expression is serious and thoughtful, her gaze directed towards the background while she delicately holds the arrow at her chest. The overall atmosphere is one of refinement that evokes a sense of timeless elegance that strengthens themes of dignity, resilience, and the complexities of historical representation.
July 27, 2025 at 10:40 PM Everybody can reply
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“Kawliya 1” by Hayv Kahraman (Iraqi) - Oil on linen / 2014 - North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh) #WomenInArt #art #WomanArtist #artwork #FemaleArtist #ArtText #WomensArt #IraqiArtist #HayvKahraman #Kahraman #dance #WomenArtists #OilPainting #WomenPaintingWomen #Dancer #NorthCarolinaMuseumofArt
Iraqi artist Hayv Kahraman’s memories and experiences as a Middle Eastern woman inform her paintings which focus on the female body and its political and social significance. Born in Baghdad in 1981, her family fled Iraq during the Gulf War and found refuge in Sweden, where she grew up and learned to paint. Kahraman moved to Florence, Italy to study graphic design and now lives in the USA. Kawliya is a traditional Iraqi dance that originated with the nomadic people of the same name, known throughout the Middle East for their talents in music and dance. Having experienced this dance as a girl, Kahraman has long celebrated this memory as a touchstone to her childhood. The artwork presents a stylized slender woman whose pose is elegant yet slightly off-balance, one arm pointing upwards, the other hand on her long dark flowing hair. Her skin is pale with soft facial features while her elongated neck and limbs have fluidity. The dancer’s collage-like top is a yellow bodice with a repeating geometric pattern of small, stylized quatrefoils. Her skirt is light teal, decorated with an equally intricate Persian-inspired pattern. An understated simple beige background allows the woman and her dress to be our focus. Due to her worldwide movement and displacement, a variety of artistic influences can be seen in her work: Japanese scrolls, Mannerist masterpieces, Persian illustrations, Arabic calligraphy, and Islamic mosaics. In the artist’s words, “When I went [back] to Iraq, I felt like a tourist. In Sweden, I’m a tourist and here [in the USA] I am definitely a tourist. The merging of cultures in my art is a search for identity. I’ve never had a home.” The females in Kahraman’s work are based on photographs the artist takes of herself. “I use my body as the primary tool,” she notes. Each woman in her work has a similar appearance—fleshy and graceful, with striking features, almost translucent skin, and elegant stances, all with a serene yet distant look on their face.
July 12, 2025 at 7:58 PM Everybody can reply
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mdstamper.bsky.social
Michael
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“Dora Maar – Intérieur Provençal” by Brenda Chamberlain (Welsh) - Oil on canvas / 1952 - Glynn Vivian Art Gallery (Swansea, Wales) #WomenInArt #WomanArtist #art #WomensArt #DoraMaar #FemaleArtist #ArtText #BrendaChamberlain #artwork #GlynnVivianArtGallery #WomenPaintingWomen #PortraitofaWoman
Born Henriette Theodora Markovitch, French photographer and painter Dora Maar has often been overshadowed by her former lover — Pablo Picasso. Maar was at the centre of the Surrealist movement and exhibited work alongside many leading male artists. Her documentary and commercial photographic practice later evolved into experimental, provocative and surreal painting and photocollage. Like her fellow Surrealists, Maar's work explored psychology, dreams, and the subconscious. After Picasso entered her life in 1936, her artistic production moved away from photomontage and towards painting. It has been noted that Maar's artistic production slowed down after entering into a relationship with Picasso as he dissuaded her from taking photographs, potentially because he was threatened by her talent. Maar was depicted in multiple paintings by different artists including Picasso's famous 1937 Cubist portrait “Weeping Woman.” In hindsight, it appears to be a reflection of the turbulent and abusive relationship between Maar and Picasso, which ended after nine years. Maar later described that period as the “worst time of my life” and experienced depression and a mental decline in the years following the breakup. After their separation, Maar would declare: “All (Picasso's) portraits of me are lies... not one is Dora Maar.” Around the same time that Maar slipped into obscurity following her split from Picasso, she abandoned her artistic pursuits. In 1952, Welsh artist Brenda Chamberlain completed this portrait of Maar. Painted when Maar had become a recluse, Chamberlain's portrait perhaps captures her solitary life. Sitting in an elaborate reddish-brown chair, with a high, curved back and ornate, swirling armrests, she appears as a pensive woman in a white short-sleeved dress, with a plate of dark purple eggplants resting on a pink-ish table beside her, creating a still-life portrait imbued with a contemplative atmosphere.
June 12, 2025 at 7:42 AM Everybody can reply
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mdstamper.bsky.social
Michael
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Portrait de Maria Lani by Jacqueline Marval (French) - Oil on canvas / 1929 #WomenInArt #ArtText #HerStory #art #oilpainting #womensart #WomanArtist #FemaleArtist #JacquelineMarval #Marval #MariaLani #PortraitofaWoman #FrenchArtist #WomenArtists #FrenchArt #FineArt #portrait #WomenPaintingWomen
French artist Jacqueline Marval (born Marie-Josephine Vallet in Grenoble in 1866), took on the pseudonym Jacqueline Marval at age 34 using a composite of her first and last name "MARie VALlet". Her new name and career as influential female artist took a while because she married traveling salesperson, Albert Valentin, in 1886, but separated from her "harassing" husband after the death of her infant son in 1891. In 1894, Marval met painter François Joseph Girot and began living with him in Paris and met "Les Nabis." Girot introduced her to Jules Flandrin, another French painter. The two fell in love, and Marval left Girot to live with Flandrin for 20 years in Montparnasse. Marval's first works were rejected by the 1900 Salon des Indépendants, but she had 12 shown the next year. From 1901-1905, Marval worked frequently alongside Henri Matisse, Albert Marquet, and Flandrin, and the four influenced each other. Critics gave Marval high praise during her career such as a 1911 magazine declaring "The paintings of Madame Marval were among the most striking..." There is also some evidence that male peers like Picasso and Matisse borrowed from her "brilliant color and formal economy of her painting." Towards the end of her life she fell into poverty and passed away from cancer at the Hôpital Bichât in Paris in 1932. Maria Lani (Maria Jeleniewicz) was an aspiring Polish actress who went to Paris in 1928 and proclaimed herself to be a silent film star. With her husband and brother, she claimed to be working on a film which required multiple portraits for the plot. Endorsed by French poet and playwright Jean Cocteau, she got 59 artists to make portraits of her ... including this dreamy, impressionistic portrait of Lani with large eyes, dark hair, pale skin, and a serene expression, dressed in a light-colored collared blouse adorned with subtle floral details. The film never materialized. but the portraits remain. Lani died in 1954 and was buried in a pauper's grave in Paris.
June 4, 2025 at 7:01 PM Everybody can reply
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pw1donut.bsky.social
pw1donut
@pw1donut.bsky.social
painter of paintings.

#womenpaintersofbluesky
#artistsofbluesky
#womenpaintingwomen
#nastywoman
#neurodivergentartist
#neurodivergent
#notnow
May 23, 2025 at 6:19 PM Everybody can reply
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mdstamper.bsky.social
Michael
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制服の少女 (Girl in Uniform) by 柏尾鞠子 (Mariko Kashio / Japanese) - Oil on canvas / 1932 #womeninart #art #WomanArtist #TaiwaneseArt #FemaleArtist #womensart #artwork #JapaneseArt #oilpainting #womenpaintingwomen #womenartists #student #portraitofawoman #柏尾鞠子 #JapaneseArtist #MarikoKashio #KashioMariko #洋画
"Girl in uniform" (制服の少女 / Seifuku no Shōjo) is a Western-style painting (洋画) created by the Japanese-ruled Taiwanese painter Mariko Kashio. Unfortunately, the original painting's location is currently unknown, but its color plate was included in the 1938 Chinese-language book "Collection of Mariko Kashio's Posthumous Works" (柏尾鞠子遺作集). Seifuku no Shōjo depicts a young woman wearing a red beret, a blue and white three-lined "sailor style" uniform (aka 制服 / seifuku) with Kansai collar, but without chest cover, a dark blue pleated skirt, and a pin-buckle belt around her waist. She has a yellow neck scarf tied around her chest. With a downcast, thoughtful expression, her hands rest comfortably in front of her body. The background is a gray wall, which contrasts the warm and cold with the tones of the her clothing. The young woman in the painting may have been a student posing as model, but the "Collection of Mariko Kashio's Posthumous Works" also includes a self-portrait of Kashio wearing a similar sailor uniform, so it may actually be the artist herself. Just a few years later, at the age of 25 in 193, a week after her son was born, Kashio unexpectedly passed away ending a promising painting career. Born in Nakanegishi, Tokyo in 1912, Kashio came to Taiwan with her parents before she was even a year old. Her father, Kashio Kubo, worked for the Yanshuigang Sugar Manufacturing Co. In 1924, Mariko, enrolled as the first student in Kaohsiung Girls' High School. Three years later, the first Taiwan Art Exhibition was collecting works. Probably with the encouragement of her teacher Ogasawara Mitsuye, she entered a painting titled "Megumi" that was selected. In 1928, she graduated from high school and went to the Tokyo Women's College of Fine Arts to pursue her dream of studying Western-style painting. After graduation, she returned to Taiwan in 1932 with this painting submitted and selected for the 6th Taiwan Art Exhibition.
May 6, 2025 at 8:38 PM Everybody can reply
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mdstamper.bsky.social
Michael
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Susan Vanderpoel Ord by Lydia Field Emmet (American) - Oil on canvas / c. 1932 - Fenimore Art Museum (Cooperstown, New York) #womeninart #womanartist #art #femaleartist #oilpainting #womensart #Fenimore #portraitofawoman #womenartists #womenpaintingwomen #LydiaFieldEmmet #Emmet #FenimoreArtMuseum
American artist Lydia Field Emmet attended the Académie Julian in Paris in 1884-1885 alongside her sister, Rosina Emmet Sherwood. Their family had suffered severe economic setbacks in the aftermath of the Civil War but were able to send the sisters abroad due to inheritance money from their cousin. Unsatisfied with their education at the Académie Julian, Emmet and her sister joined a summer colony of American Artists in Giverny, France. The colony, including artists Theodore Robinson and John Leslie Breck stayed at Hotel Baudy, near the home of the legendary painter Claude Monet. Upon her return to the United States, Emmet studied under the famous portraitist William Merritt Chase and became a member of the National Academy of Design. Most known for her portraits of children, Emmet preferred to paint adult sitters, as she did not consider child portraits to be especially challenging work. Here she depicts Susan Vanderpoel Ord a member of the New York elite. The loose brushstrokes used to capture the draping of Ord’s beautiful red velvet dress, the reflection of her bare arm on the table, as well as the Japanese-inspired background show the influence of Chase in Emmet’s painting style. Years earlier, in 1893, Emmet was selected, along with prominent women American artists such as Mary Cassatt, Mary MacMonnies-Low, Lucia Fairchild Fuller and her sister, Rosina, to paint murals in the newly constructed Woman's Building at the World's Columbian Exposition. Emmet's contributions included a painting entitled “Seal of the New York State Board” and a mural entitled “Art, Literature and Imagination.” Emmet exhibited widely during her career, and her paintings can now be found hanging in the White House, and many prestigious art galleries, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. One of Emmet's most famous portraits is that of her young nephew, playwright Robert Emmet Sherwood.
May 5, 2025 at 7:33 AM Everybody can reply
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katgbirmelin.bsky.social
Kat Birmelin
@katgbirmelin.bsky.social
May the fourth be with you.

A for funsies Leia Organa created after the indigenous women who inspired the classic Leia buns look.

#maythefourth #maythefourthbewithyou #leia #starwars #homage #womenpaintingwomen #watercolor
May 3, 2025 at 11:38 PM Everybody can reply
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mdstamper.bsky.social
Michael
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Ida Rubinstein by Romaine Brooks (American) - Oil on canvas / 1917 - Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington DC) #womeninart #art #oilpainting #womensart #artwork #womanartist #femaleartist #portraitofawoman #SAAM #RomaineBrooks #womenpaintingwomen #womenartists #SmithsonianAmericanArtMuseum
In 1911, American painter Romaine Brooks met Russian dancer and arts patron Ida Rubinstein in Paris after Rubinstein's first performance as the title character in Gabriele D'Annunzio's play "The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian" (for which Rubinstein was excommunicated by the Parisian archbishop because she starred as St Sebastian, a Catholic saint, while she was a Jewish woman). Rubinstein was already well known for her refined beauty and expressive gestures; she secured her reputation as a daring performer by starring as the male saint in this boundary-pushing show that combined religious history, androgyny, and erotic narrative. D’Annunzio had an obsessive but unrequited attraction to Rubinstein, whereas Rubinstein fell deeply in love with Brooks ... and a romantic triangle unfolded. Rubinstein was so committed to Brooks that she wanted to buy a farm in the country where they could live together undisturbed, yet Brooks was not interested in hiding at all. Brooks found her ideal -- and her artistic inspiration -- in the tall, lithe, sensuous Rubinstein, who modeled for many sketches, paintings, and photographs Brooks produced during their relationship, from 1911 to 1914. In her autobiographical manuscript, "No Pleasant Memories," Brooks said the inspiration for this portrait came as the two women walked through the Bois de Boulogne on a cold winter morning. The couple split around 1914. Was it because of another woman? Some say Brooks had already met her future lover – Natalie Clifford Barney, an American-born writer – in 1914, others say in 1916. Anyway, the relationship with Barney was the longest and most important for Brooks. It was, however, yet another triangle, as they shared their lives with Lily de Gramont. Nonetheless, Brooks couldn’t forget Rubinstein, and she painted her one last time in The Weeping Venus (1916-1917). She said she tried to repaint Venus’ facial features many times, but Rubinstein’s face kept haunting her: “It fixes itself in the mind.”
May 2, 2025 at 4:47 PM Everybody can reply
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mdstamper.bsky.social
Michael
@mdstamper.bsky.social
Reflection by Alana Knuff (American) - Oil on linen / 2010 - Gibbes Museum of Art (Charleston, South Carolina) #womeninart #art #artwork #femaleartist #womanartist #womensart #portraitofawoman #AlanaKnuff #Knuff #GibbesMuseumofArt #ArtText #oilpainting #fineart #womenpaintingwomen #beauty #TheGibbes
“Painting is capturing a moment in time. A moment offered by the Creator and painted by me.” - American artist Alana Knuff This piece received an Honorable Mention at the First Federal Exhibit in Charleston, SC. The artist met the unidentified model while grocery shopping, who agreed to pose for two portraits, one of which Knuff gave to her and this one. A young Black woman with long, dark, curly hair is the central focus, taking up most of the canvas. Her expression is somewhat thoughtful, perhaps in a moment of reflection as her gaze is directed away from us (to our left). She's wearing an off-white graphic t-shirt with light pink trim. Her skin tone is rich and dark, and Knuff has captured subtle variations in light and shadow on her face. Her beautiful hair is a prominent feature, depicted with loose, textured curls that fall around her shoulders and down her back. Knuff clearly paid close attention to the way light interacts with the individual strands and the overall mass of her hair. The background is blurred and indistinct, but may contain a second reason for the paintings "Reflection" title as a less-defined and obscured portion of another person's head and shoulder is visible behind the woman, suggesting that she may be sitting next to someone ... or is it a mirror reflecting that she presents a front to us of one personality, but is different person inside? The impressionistic and painterly style of the painting may not give us the answer, but the mood and atmosphere, focusing on the quiet contemplation of the women gives her -- and us -- a moment of reflection.
May 1, 2025 at 10:46 PM Everybody can reply
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mdstamper.bsky.social
Michael
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Black Virgin by Thelma Johnson Streat (American) - Oil on canvas / c. 1948 - Reed College Art Collection #womeninart #art #womensart #artwork #femaleartist #portraitofawoman #womanartist #womenpaintingwomen #AfricanAmericanArtist #ArtText #AfricanAmericanArt #beauty #ThelmaJohnsonStreat #ReedCollege
African-American artist, dancer, and educator Thelma Beatrice Johnson Streat's work was powerful, both in line and color. She was the first first Black woman artist to have a painting included in New York’s Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection. Streat studied art briefly at Reed College in Portland in the 1940s, and she subsequently donated this painting that is widely considered to be her greatest work — The Black Virgin. Born in Yakima, Washington and raised in Portland, Oregon, Streat packed a whirlwind career into her short life. She was a dancer, singer, and painter as well as a textile artist. She worked with Mexican muralist Diego Rivera on his “Pan American Unity” mural for the federal Works Progress Administration in San Francisco in 1939, and her own WPA mural “Medicine and Transportation” resides in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture. In this painting, she reportedly depicts herself as a “Black Virgin Mary” all in white. The gaze of the Virgin draws our attention and holds it. Her eyes are averted to the side, looking back at us with an intensity that feels quite earnest. Because her face is to the right of center, when her eyes shift left they return our focus to the middle. The Virgin’s face has a pleasing fullness, yet the shadow cast by it is triangular in contrast to the horizontal plane of her collarbone. Behind each shoulder, there are spots of green, and cartoonish tree branches curve upward toward the sky in a warm brown color that complements the richness of her skin tone. There is a shine on her nose and lips, and a reflection on her forehead that appears to represent the panes of a window and the practical reality of a studio setting where Streat probably used a mirror to capture her own image. The contours of her face are outlined by a blue glow that creates unexpected intrigue, and the underside of her veil is purple not white, as if colored by the reflection of that mysterious blue.
May 1, 2025 at 7:12 AM Everybody can reply
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mdstamper.bsky.social
Michael
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Catarina Cassange by Panmela Castro (Brazilian) - Oil on canvas / 2020 - Pinacoteca de São Paulo (Brazil) #womeninart #art #womanartist #oiilpainting #femaleartist #fineart #BrazilianArtist #artwork #BrazilianArt #PanmelaCastro #PinacotecadeSãoPaulo #herstory #womenpaintingwomen #AnarkiaBoladona
Brazilian artist Panmelo Castro depicts the well-known enslaved saleswoman Catarina Cassange who, during the late 1830s, ran away while pregnant to ensure that her newborn would live in freedom. During this era, head garments began to signify the promise of liberty as the means to carry their few, but essential belongings and turbans were transformed into symbols of women's participation in rebellions and insurrections ... or in search of a new beginning in another place. In Brazil, many enslaved black women chose to escape when they were pregnant, in an attempt both to have a more peaceful birth and to prevent their offspring from remaining enslaved or even being separated for sale. Catarina Cassange was one of them. Between 1838 and 1839. Her owner, Manoel da Rosa, announced in the "Diário do Rio de Janeiro" that she was four months pregnant with descriptions of her body and behavior. The first announcement of her escape was followed by at least three more in the space of four months. Even without being able to capture her, information was obtained about her whereabouts. Known as "preta ao ganho", a saleswoman in the area near Valongo beach and Rua do Livramento, where many Africans concentrated. A month after the first ad, another was published saying that Catarina was being helped by "seducers" to leave and a third ad said she was spending the nights hiding in anchored boats. Catariana managed to remain a refugee for a year, only to be captured at the end of 1839. She revealed that she had been to many places in the city and in the Guanabara region. The person who helped her the most was the freedman Aleixo, a Mina African who worked as a barber. For a long time, he hid Catarina in his house in Rua dos Ferradores. With the support and temporary protection of several helpers, Catarina managed to have her son - named José - who was taken to live in the "quilombo of Laranjeiras" settlement of runaway slaves in Bahia.
April 21, 2025 at 10:47 PM Everybody can reply
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