Revolutionary by Nature: Master Prints by Women Artists 1896-2020
On the hundredth anniversary of women鈥檚 suffrage and the passage of the 19th Amendment in the United States, the myriad achievements of women artists are being reflected in the curatorial programs of museums across the country. Since its founding in 1981, Mary Ryan Gallery has steadfastly embraced and championed women artists whose massive contributions to art history have long been overlooked by institutions and collectors around the world. The celebratory exhibition at Mary Ryan Gallery features a wide range of artists who have radically pushed social, institutional and artistic boundaries throughout their careers. It especially highlights artists with whom the gallery has maintained a longstanding professional relationship. Those familiar with the gallery program will surely recognize many works from previous solo and group exhibitions. A total of 36 works by 33 artists is included in this exhibition.
Featuring generations of artists who have wrestled with the tenuous challenges of being a woman in the art world since the 19th century, the exhibition will include seminal works by trail blazers such as Mary Cassatt, whose color etchings count as some of the highest achievements in the history of printmaking, and K盲the Kollwitz, whose special eye for the poor and vulnerable produced deeply empathetic prints that went on to inspire entire movements of anti-war sensibilities. The exhibition also includes the inventive color woodcuts of Blanche Lazzell, who is credited with making the first purely abstract print in the United States, featured alongside the radicalism of the midwestern American artists who made their careers in Europe but settled in Provincetown during the First World War. Further, the breathless modernism of Grosvenor school linocuts by Sybil Andrews and Lill Tschudi is exhibited alongside the social-realist leanings of the American WPA-era works by Mabel Dwight, Elizabeth Olds and Marion Greenwood.
Sexist discrimination and exclusion have served as barriers for women in the art world throughout history. In the field of printmaking, only very few publishers would support prints made by women, and collectors were generally disinclined to consider their work. Many of the early prints in this exhibition were self-published by the artists themselves. Edition sizes were often small as there was little to no market or distribution for their works. This gendered exclusion continues to this day, a fact that is notably reflected by the distinct lack of catalogue raisonn茅s on prints by women artists; much research and scholarship is needed.
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On the hundredth anniversary of women鈥檚 suffrage and the passage of the 19th Amendment in the United States, the myriad achievements of women artists are being reflected in the curatorial programs of museums across the country. Since its founding in 1981, Mary Ryan Gallery has steadfastly embraced and championed women artists whose massive contributions to art history have long been overlooked by institutions and collectors around the world. The celebratory exhibition at Mary Ryan Gallery features a wide range of artists who have radically pushed social, institutional and artistic boundaries throughout their careers. It especially highlights artists with whom the gallery has maintained a longstanding professional relationship. Those familiar with the gallery program will surely recognize many works from previous solo and group exhibitions. A total of 36 works by 33 artists is included in this exhibition.
Featuring generations of artists who have wrestled with the tenuous challenges of being a woman in the art world since the 19th century, the exhibition will include seminal works by trail blazers such as Mary Cassatt, whose color etchings count as some of the highest achievements in the history of printmaking, and K盲the Kollwitz, whose special eye for the poor and vulnerable produced deeply empathetic prints that went on to inspire entire movements of anti-war sensibilities. The exhibition also includes the inventive color woodcuts of Blanche Lazzell, who is credited with making the first purely abstract print in the United States, featured alongside the radicalism of the midwestern American artists who made their careers in Europe but settled in Provincetown during the First World War. Further, the breathless modernism of Grosvenor school linocuts by Sybil Andrews and Lill Tschudi is exhibited alongside the social-realist leanings of the American WPA-era works by Mabel Dwight, Elizabeth Olds and Marion Greenwood.
Sexist discrimination and exclusion have served as barriers for women in the art world throughout history. In the field of printmaking, only very few publishers would support prints made by women, and collectors were generally disinclined to consider their work. Many of the early prints in this exhibition were self-published by the artists themselves. Edition sizes were often small as there was little to no market or distribution for their works. This gendered exclusion continues to this day, a fact that is notably reflected by the distinct lack of catalogue raisonn茅s on prints by women artists; much research and scholarship is needed.
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