Curators in Conversation: All-Women Exhibitions in the US and UK in the 1950s

Daniel Belasco, art historian and executive director, Al Held Foundation, talks with Rachel Stratton, Curatorial Postdoctoral Research Associate, Yale Center for British Art
About this program
All-women art exhibitions began in London in 1857 and became a widespread phenomenon in the twentieth century. In his new book, Women Artists in Midcentury America: A History in Ten Exhibitions, Daniel Belasco surveys the impact of these gendered spaces. This talk provides an overview of the issues and artists, with a focus on the exhibition Women Printmakers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1956, which presented more than 125 artists, many of them British. Among those included were Angelica Kauffmann and Laura Knight, both represented in the YCBA’s collections, as well as Leonora Carrington and Norma Morgan.
About the book
In Women Artists in Midcentury America: A History in Ten Exhibitions, readers embark on a journey spanning two decades, delving into evolving social and artistic landscapes through the lens of all-women exhibitions. These groundbreaking projects courageously confronted issues of sexual and racial discrimination, igniting profound discussions about women’s roles within modernism and democracy. Looking closely at the inception and reception of these exhibitions by curators, artists, critics, and the public, the book sheds light on the remarkable contributions of numerous artists, from Ruth Asawa to Marguerite Zorach. By foregrounding the accomplishments of women artists during a conservative period that was overshadowed by the feminist movement of the 1970s, Daniel Belasco provides a fresh perspective on the complex history of women’s art in America and its significance in the broader art world.
About Daniel Belasco
Daniel Belasco is an art historian and the executive director of the Al Held Foundation. His archive-based research on women artists appears in international journals, books, and catalogues, and his first monograph, Women Artists in Midcentury America: A History in Ten Exhibitions (Reaktion), was published this year. An award-winning museum curator, Belasco has held positions at the Jewish Museum, New York, and the Dorsky Museum of Art, SUNY New Paltz, where he organized the survey exhibitions Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism and Reinventing Ritual and monographic studies of Bradley Walker Tomlin, Grace Hartigan, Dick Polich, and Mary Reid Kelley. He holds a PhD in the history of art and architecture from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and a BA in sociology from Amherst College. He is on the board of trustees of the Association of Art Museum Curators Foundation.