(10/02/1848 - 25/02/1936) The Water Carrier (c. 1900) As both an artist and collector, Boch occupies a unique position within the history...

(28/01/1900 - 13/10/1984) Self-Portrait (1980) Among the most innovative figurative painters of the twentieth century, Neel refused to follow trends and changes in art aligned with the popular Modernism and Abstraction movements of her time. Instead, she depicted her family and friends (some famous, some anonymous to history) as their most raw, honest and, at times, confronting selves, through expressive colour and psychological depth that captures their vulnerability and res

(1435 - 1504) The Maid of Ghent - Flag of the City of Ghent (1481-82) One of the earliest documented female painters to have worked...

(11/04/1749 - 24/04/1803) Born into a working-class family, Labille-Guiard was an artist unlikely to succeed by both gender and class, yet, at just 20 years old, was admitted to the Académie de Saint-Luc followed by the Royal Academy in 1783 and made her Salon debut that same year. Labille-Guiard was an ardent advocate for women’s artistic education and was herself a teacher to many male and female students. She frequently challenged the Academy to end limitations of the numb

(Australia, 01/09/1884 - 03/08/1961) Hilda Rix Nicholas’s rural landscapes and portraits of spirited soldiers were some of the most significant and impactful contributions to Australian art in the inter-war years, challenging conventional representations of the Australian landscape and people with her adoption of Post-Impressionist styles, one of the first Australians to do so. Born in Ballarat, Victoria, in 1884, her father was a prominent teacher and poet, and her mother wa

(Argentina-Italy, 30/08/1907 - 18/01/1996) Exploring the nature of beauty and age, love and sex and life and decay through her depiction of ambivalent sorceresses, Fini’s work flipped the switch on the subjugation of women as degenerate femme fatales with the women in her artworks, to whom she gave all the powers and complexity denied to herself and the women before her, ultimately working to resituate women artists away from the paradigms of the previous centuries. Born in B

(Dutch, 26/07/1609 - 10/02/1660) 17th century Dutch Golden Age painter, Judith Leyster was, like many great women artists, highly regarded during her lifetime but quickly forgotten, and even purposefully erased, after her death. In so far as is known Leyster was the first woman in Western art history to have been officially recognised as a ‘master painter’ by a painters’ guild when she joined the Guild of St. Luke in 1633, at just 24 years old, where she was the only female a

(South Africa, 1972-) Born in 1972 in Umlazi, South Africa, Muholi has dedicated their career to documenting the lives of marginalised communities and celebrating their experiences through powerful portraits, films and installations that have transformed the landscape of contemporary African art and LGBTQIA+ representation. As a self-described visual activist, Muholi uses the camera to explore issues of gender identity, representation and race. Beginning their formal training

As agents of non-verbal communication, symbols have been powerful tools used throughout history to identify and unite, just as much as they have been used to isolate and divide. When one thinks of symbols used by members of LGBTQIA+ communities the most obvious example may be the ubiquitous rainbow flag, although, prior to its design in 1976, images of pink triangles could be found around the world denoting queerness. First seen during World War II, the pink triangle, like so

Tomorrow, July 10, 2025, the Tate Modern will open its doors to a groundbreaking exhibition of Indigenous Australian artist Emily Kame...

Models who have bent, stretched and contorted their bodies into an assortment of poses, and held them for countless hours, have gone...

Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) is often credited with making the single artistic breakthrough that led to total abstraction in art and the development of the Abstract movement which redefined what could be considered ‘art’ for the twentieth century. Unlike the history of other art movements, which were written by philosophers and historians in hindsight, Kandinsky himself wrote this narrative. But while the narrative of Kandinsky being the pioneer of Abstraction

Earlier this week it was announced that Zanzibari-British artist Lubaina Himid (1954-) would represent Britain at the 2026 Venice Biennale making her the second woman of colour to do so in the 131 years Britain has hosted a pavilion at the international event, (the first was Sonia Boyce in 2022). In 2017, Himid became the first woman of colour to win the UK's coveted Turner Prize for her work Naming the Money (2004). Although, prior to these achievements, Himid had seldom re

When is an enigma, not an enigma? - When it has been constructed as such to appease romantic and sexual fantasies.

Art is a powerful force. Whether you love it, hate it or are entirely indifferent, art is a reflection of who we are. Such a reflection...

The 1970s was a tumultuous decade wherein the Vietnam War came to an end, Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in straight sets as 50...

With the abundance of research proving Duchamp didn't create Fountain (1917), why does the true artist continue to be denied authorship?

Is it possible to be too  Dada? To be too  much the epitome of an art movement or to challenge its belief structure, so much so that the...

When you hear the term 'Dutch Golden Age’ you likely think of the many great paintings that have been used as the cornerstones of the...

The ‘Statue of Three Lies’, as it is known, is possibly the most accurate representation of the ways in which memorial monuments complica...