The feminist art movement emerged in the 1960s with women artists taking an interest in how they differed from their male counterparts. It was most prominent in Britain, the USA and Germany and has since spread. Feminist artists pointed out that throughout recorded history, males have imposed patriarchal social systems in which they have dominated females. Significant in this patriarchal system is the preponderance of art made by males, for male audiences, sometimes transgressing against females.
Men have maintained a studio system which has excluded women from training as artists, a gallery system that has kept them from exhibiting and selling their work, as well as from being collected by museums. Although this is somewhat less in recent years. The Tate, in the last year, has promoted an active exhibition programme to redress this balance and to reassess the careers of several women artists. Artlyst has put together its top 10 feminist artists.
10. Tracey Emin CBE RA (b 1963)
The notorious outspoken Turner Prize nominee known for her confessional and autobiographical artworks in a variety of media, including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, photography, neon text and sewn appliqué. Her 1998 piece “My Bed” turned the classical view of a woman’s boudoir on its head, showing the marks of blood, sweat and tears.
9. Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)
Mexican surrealist painter who typically painted self-portraits using vibrant colours, expressing her life and pain.
8. Cindy Sherman (b1954)
American photographer and film director known for her conceptual self-portraits in which she photographs herself in a range of costumes that call attention to the stereotyping of women in films, television and magazines.
7. Laurie Simmons (b1949)
American artist, photographer and filmmaker whose work is concerned with the role of women in society. She uses elaborate dollhouse scenes of suburban scenes. Her ‘objects on legs’ series uses cakes, guns and musical instruments on legs to make a statement on traditional gender roles.
6. Guerrilla Girls (1985)
Formed in New York City in 1985, the Guerrilla Girls are an anonymous group of seven female, feminist artists whose mission is to bring gender and racial inequality into focus in the art world and beyond.
5. Sarah Lucas (b1962)
One of the YBA artists who emerged in the 1990s. She represented Britain at the 2015 Venice Biennale. Her work questions conventions and highlights daily absurdities through witty, bawdy visual puns.
4. Margaret Harrison (b1940)
Yorkshire-born feminist artist who studied at the Royal Academy Schools. She founded the London Women’s Liberation Art Group in 1970. In 1971, an exhibition of her work was closed by the police for its ‘pornographic’ depiction of men (Hugh Hefner as a naked bunny girl). In 201,3 she won the Northern Art Prize.
3. Barbara Nessim (b1939)
Barbara Nessim was one of the first artists to seriously pursue digital art and illustration. Since the 1960s Nessim has been at the front lines of both illustration and feminism creating images for Rolling Stone, Time and New York Magazine depicting gender bending heroines that like Nessim herself were far ahead of their time.
2. Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010)
French-born American sculptor, painter and printmaker. Her works often express themes of loneliness, frustration and vulnerability. Her Femme Maison series is frequently interpreted as the sacrifice of women’s identity for home and family.
1. Judy Chicago (b1939)
American feminist artist and author. Originally associated with the Minimalist movement of the 1960s, Chicago soon abandoned this in favour of creating content-based art. Her most famous work to date is the installation piece The Dinner Party (1974-79), an homage to women’s history celebrating their cultural achievements, which was created between 1974 and 1979 (with the help of several hundred volunteers).