‘Italian Women Artists From Renaissance To Baroque’

Washington D.C.

:Even in today's enlightened times, if you ask someone to name some painters from the Italian Renaissance and Baroque periods, you are likely to get answers such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo or Caravaggio. All, of course, highly distinguished artists — and all men.

With a groundbreaking exhibition, the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) emphatically expands the list of outstanding artists of that era by spotlighting highly accomplished women painters who were both professionally and commercially successful. "Italian Women Artists from Renaissance to Baroque," the first comprehensive survey of paintings, drawings and prints by female artists of early modern Italy — roughly, the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries — is on view at the NMWA through July 15.

Co-curated by NMWA senior curator Jordana Pomeroy and University of Bologna professor of art history Vera Fortunati, the show includes 60 works by 15 major women artists, highlighted by paintings by Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana and Artemesia Gentileschi. An international exhibition of international stature, this is clearly the "eye opener" predicted by NMWA director Judy L. Larson. As Pomeroy observes, "Women artists from this period have never been presented together nor framed within their social and historical context."

The organizers astutely utilized an interdisciplinary approach to explore major obstacles confronting women artists of the time: the cultural context in which women worked in Italy; the difficulties of acquiring education and training; and marketing strategies they employed to attract patrons. How these intrepid women overcame entrenched societal and cultural biases to succeed is a stirring story — and one the NMWA is uniquely qualified to tell as part of its 20th anniversary year.

The women featured in the show grew up and pursued careers at a time when the deck was decidedly stacked against them. They were denied educational opportunities in most fields. Some, like Fontana and Gentileschi, studied art in their fathers' studios. Anguissola came from an upper-class family in which art instruction was part of her upbringing.

Restricted by societal mores dictating that they appear modest and chaste, these women could not be as aggressive as their male counterparts in the public marketplace, limiting their ability to seek patrons. Anguissola's numerous self-portraits were distributed by her father among potential collectors as proof of her artistic gifts. Elisabetta Sirani's engravings of the Holy Family served as private devotional images, as well as reminders of her talents. Women artists were often regarded as "marvels of nature," a status that sometimes attracted clients to their work.