Overdue Attention for Overlooked Women Old Masters
Several significant exhibitions of Old Masters have been announced, and while large shows of Renaissance and Baroque paintings aren’t anything new, this recent spate is solely focused on women painters of the eras. From Washington DC’s National Museum of Women in the Arts to London’s National Gallery and Madrid’s Museo Nacional del Prado, shows dedicated to artists including Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, Judith Leyster, Rachel Ruysch, Maria Schalcken and others are being put together because art institutions finally recognize their immense appeal. It’s not (as many may assume) that there was a lack of artworks by women—in fact, in the case of the DC show Women Artists of the Dutch Golden Age, the museum has an “abundance of works by women of the period.” As curator curator Virginia Treanor says, she hopes her show (and presumably others) dismiss “the myth of exceptionalism which I think is doing a disservice to many of these artists.” Read more at Artsy.
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