The Forgotten History of Professional Women Artists

If you open any art history textbook, it will be pages and pages full of men. But where are the women at? Were there any female artists in history besides Frida Khalo or Georgia O’Keeffe? Elli Milan takes a deep dive into the forgotten history of professional women artists from the Renaissance all the way to the 20th century. And she examines the role of women in art today and how it has (and hasn’t) changed from the past.
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[@milanartapp]

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[@MsPicklesmom]

thank you for giving these women air time and bringing them into modern day awareness.

[@jozemarcelino7289]

I loved this post, however it should be entitled "The Forgotten History of Professional WESTERN Women Artists" as it shows the same establishment biased view of women in arts. There was no mention to one black female artist, thus if i was a girl i would feel the same way you felt with your teachers not mentioning women in arts. And it would have been so easy to show more inclusivity or diversity. In case it was hard in your research (?) to find black women in arts here follows a list of a few, one of which Lois Mailou Jones was refused by the Corcoran museum racist policy, making them to apologise a few years ago. Here is a very short list: Lois Mailou Jones (1905-1998); Annie E. Anderson Walker, 1855-1929; (Corcoran School of Art refused to let her attend); Edmonia Lewis c.1844-1907; Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, 1877-1968; May Howard Jackson, 1877-1931.

[@JoeJoe-ng9qb]

Thank you for posting this list!!! Let's not bite off the heads of those who do list, ok? Because you'd have to bite off your own head now. Gotta go look up these women artists of color you shared. Thanks!!!

[@saradowling602]

Great to have this discussion on visibility. However, from the perspective of academic credibility, sourcing your quotes and images correctly is key!

[@klaudyday749]

I love the message you are spreading, even if some of the facts you used about the big 4 female artists were a little off. It’s sad that for women to be mass recognized, the women must be broken/traumatized/disabled in some way. I’d love to see women recognized for strength, resiliency, and their abilities to evoke or awaken emotion that lives in all of us.

[@atzinaidee1922]

Thanks a lot for this video! I’m not visual artist, I’m musician but this is inspiring, English is my second language and this is absolutely clear ❤ thank u!

[@thephoenix2741]

You are so right! I had no idea there were professional women artists back then! Before 1800’s

[@kareeg7025]

Very insightful. Thank you Elli 🥰

[@alexandrasanches-fearsnomo3422]

I just love your message and enthusiasm! Resonate 100%! Congratulations! Love you! Big hug!❤🎉

[@lijavacika7648]

Wooow, that was so interesting, i enjoyed a lot!! Thank you!

[@katokianimation]

Finally, i have been looking for a collection of names like this for ages

[@pamostman516]

I enjoyed this presentation very much but I do have a slight correction. Georgia O'Keefe did spend part of her year in New Mexico from 1929 on but as you stated did not move permanently there until after her husbands death.

[@daniellemacdonald1668]

fantastic well rounded opinon. Thank you for your well though out teachings

[@emmabellesmallwood2513]

Thankyou Elli!!!! This was sooo good! ❤️‍🔥

[@ariannagonzalez2618]

Thank you for this Elli ! I feel/see The big shift happening 🦋✨

[@kaygilbert8773]

So interesting and inspiring to all us women artist! Thank you

[@lynnereid811]

Excellent, informative, thought provoking. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I have just started the mastery programme so I'm soaking it all up!

[@alisonbarlow7836]

I’m taking an art history & feminism class at college & in doing my own research, I found this KZbin video, thank you for making this video. I’d never heard of artemesia gentileschi until I took art history & feminism. But, why do you say that it is looks like woman painted this woman, what about that painting says that to you? Also, I don't know much about Yayoi Kusama, but if she is painting what she experiences about her mental health, I do not understand how that is victimization and how that is not powerful. She is showing people what she experiences and that could be powerful to others who deal with the same thing and show people that they're not alone. Same with Frida Kahlo. Also, I haven't done much research on Frida Kahlo, but the film Frida starring Salma Hayek, depicts Frida as an unconventional woman who wasn't afraid of her sexuality etc, and that film was based on her life, I'm not sure how true it was, but how is painting about her pain victimization. It seems to me that if Frida was truly "just a victim" she would have done nothing at all, she wouldn't have tried to paint, but she did paint. She didn't let her disability stop her. I disagree that all these women were just victimized.

[@JoeJoe-ng9qb]

Love the reference to Marie Antoinette. Beautiful and what happened to Marie? And I never heard prior to this wonderful post that Marie supported women artists. Thank you again!!!

[@COSMICGIRL009]

thank you!!!! love u for this one!

[@appyhappyart]

Thank you for this insight, so interesting!

[@elenaanderson8346]

I hope you continue this series, it is so refreshing, like all your points of view on art! Thanks for what you do!!! ❤❤❤

[@peteonart3842]

Totally agree. Never understood why in a time when woman are in the most powerful seats, they still dont get a fair and even deal. Great videao thanks. Pete

[@arrateegana1340]

Thanks! A ot of things can be undertsanding...

[@elenadianova2420]

Love it!

[@SarahVonUrban]

Such a great video :) women need to be empowered in the art world and I think it's fantastic that we're starting change that!

[@elizabethjadedeshotel5501]

Elli, is that your painting? It's phenomenal!

[@trishstafford8256]

Thank you Elli

[@JoeJoe-ng9qb]

It is 2024 this is Brilliant and thank you!!! Just found this!! I'm having to deal with the white male establishment to place my well-known wife's work in NYC and it is the SOS. Hasn't changed. Working on this. Love your youtube!!!!

[@Artepavordno]

Thank you and let's wish all the best to our female future!! Artep Avordno

[@rodrigocarmelo9070]

Even not non artist still accept there arts,thanks

[@martinoulthwaite7327]

the awesome 'Laurie Lipton'! the greatest artist ever! you can call me susan if that ain't so.

[@2424dawn]

Thank you for bringing awareness to the disregard of women in Art. Great video make more on this topic please thx

[@lindakopec7036]

Also check out The Art Doctor on here. In her video 5 Classical Women Artists You Should Know, she references a book with over 400 women artists. Another video The Women Artists of Monhegan Island is interesting - also on your side of the country.

[@sarahwbs]

Your comment about Yayoi Kusama "not being whole" is very ableist and reductive. There was no need to say anything negative about a female artist, as though female artists should compete with each other rather than celebrate each other.

[@andresburton2130]

Sofonisba Anguissola was born in northern Italy, not Spain.

[@TMPreRaff]

"I'm probably not going to say these names right, but that's okay." - WHY is It okay? If you're trying to restore some awareness of these women, try learning their names CORRECTLY.

[@reyno6826]

I would assume its because she doesn't speak other languages and isn't familiar with their pronunciations.

[@amandamiergarza2243]

Good video, I just have something to object to, are you judging a woman artist by the life she had to live? Does that devalue her art? I think what we have to do, as women, is add and not subtract

[@elenaanderson8346]

P.S. please never mind the thin skinned mean critics and know-it-alls, they are not changing the world, you do!

[@dianeavallone4476]

Extremely ableist

[@AlraArt]

Weman

[@peterkavanagh64]

Try adjust thr manguage women in the art world will sky rocket , to this it sets a lock.on creative..but to addrees the unballnaced males is the mither loss. It might be better by grandma artist and time

[@jazw4649]

Maria Brito ... not Britto 🤨 Some of your other women in art history facts should be researched a little better too.

[@stevenhenryandresen]

You told your story about how your husband has been credited for your mutually created work. The problem there seems to be in journalism and not with artists. Journalism tends to push narratives that don't reflect reality. Their narratives overrode all the information you gave that reporter. All your facts would have complicated the simple story the reporter wanted to tell.

[@nat27art]

I appreciate your intention to promote the existence and accomplishments of women artists throughout (Western) history, however, I think you are obligated to pronounce their names correctly. You simply can enter a name in Google translate and ask for pronunciation and then practice saying it. It’s a discredit to the artists not to say their names correctly and makes you seem less than serious about the importance of the artists and of your mission to familiarize the names. I hope you will take my point seriously and change your approach. Thank you!

[@geertevink4457]

Please make a bit more effort to say the names correctly when you want to represent these women to the full.

[@magnuskarlsson8655]

It's quite simple: as long as there are sexist selection pressures on men to be the breadwinner and to strive for socio-economic status in order to be able to attract a female partner, men are going to be on top of every socio-economic hierarchy of every profession. And as a result they will be more ambitious, they will work harder and longer hours, and they will, consciously or unconsciously, act as gatekeeper in order to maximize their chances to attract a mate. One can't have it both ways, one can't be hypergamous (select men who are higher in socio-economic status), and then complain about not being men's equal, and even blame men for this. We've tried this for more than 100 years now, it's time to learn from our mistakes and realize that we cannot liberate women without liberating men.

[@ariannagonzalez2618]

As a mother I think what if the opposite was true. Liberate/ lift women up. Women sacrifice their physical form to bring forth life. A sacrifice is a holy offering yet women don’t get treated like they are holy in particular after birth. You’re told that your value depreciates, and I think it’s the opposite. Women have built in rites of passages that start with our periods, then motherhood, and menopause. With each shift wisdom is gained. Yet women have been told their periods are disgusting, birth went from being a woman’s space to men taking over in the modern day medical industry making bank off every child born that’s why it’s often rushed, and not treated like a ceremony. Women basically being told they can’t do what they were biologically created for. Old women are put in nursing homes instead of being treated like the wealth of wisdom, and knowledge that they are. Who’s to say women don’t work hard or long hours ? Raising children is a 24/7 unpaid job, and often thankless. On top of that some women end up single moms, and have to keep a job or two to support their children. Money is great, but when we die will you be remembered for how much was in your bank account or how you treated people ? “You keep the bread all to yourself and you get mold from it. You give a good girl a rose and you get gold from it. You give a woman a brick and you'll get a house from it”. Perhaps we should try something new. Men being gatekeepers of money turns into greed, and people living in poverty. Women cannot stand to see other women, and children starving. If women had the upper hand on money there would be no poverty on earth I guarantee that.

[@GirlUPcycled]

Elli I love this Soo much! You have such an eloquent way of talking about this! Thank you for sharing your insight ❤

[@magnuskarlsson8655]

​@@ariannagonzalez2618 "As a mother I think what if the opposite was true. Liberate/ lift women up." I don't know if you actually read my comment, but as I said, you can't liberate women without liberating men, because we depend on each other which means that if you discriminate against one you also discriminate against the other. And if we lift women up while we are shitting on men, as we have actively done for the last 70 years, what we get is not equality but self-entitled women and resentful men. And that is not a society in which anyone wants to live. "Women sacrifice their physical form to bring forth life. A sacrifice is a holy offering yet women don’t get treated like they are holy in particular after birth." Women are not holy, they are human beings, just like men, and they should not be given any special treatment since men's sacrifices are equal to women's if not greater. The sacrifice of child birth - which is also a gift, not just a sacrifice - are not greater than men's sacrifices in war and in hard physical labor. But you don't see any men talking about how this makes men holy. "You’re told that your value depreciates..." No one is saying that, on the contrary, women who give birth are valued more highly than women who decide to not give birth, since children is seen as an investment in our individual and collective future. What you probably mean is that if you want to leave or cheat on your husband, you then have a decreased sexual market value since women, as you yourself put it, "sacrifice their physical form to bring forth life". "...birth went from being a woman’s space to men taking over in the modern day medical industry making bank off every child born that’s why it’s often rushed, and not treated like a ceremony." This is an absolutely crazy statement. It is thanks to male intervention in the form of the modern day medical industry that the maternal and child mortality rate has radically declined compared to the premodern world. But instead of being grateful, women, as usual, are more interested in complaining and to perceive this as a form of patriarchal domination violating female spaces. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess. If you reduce female suffering you hate and oppress women, but if you don't do anything to reduce female suffering you also hate and oppress women. It's also self-contradictory to complain about women sacrificing themselves in child birth and then complain about men trying to - and succeeding in - reducing the rate of such sacrifices. "Women basically being told they can’t do what they were biologically created for" And who is telling women this? Because it certainly isn't men. The only ones telling women they shouldn't be mothers and who downgrades motherhood is other women, more specifically feminists - and their feminist male counterparts. "Old women are put in nursing homes instead of being treated like the wealth of wisdom, and knowledge that they are." I'm getting a bit tired of your female-centeredness on every issue: old men are put in nursing homes too, even though they too possess a lot of wisdom and knowledge, this is just an unfortunate part of modern life, it's not part of some big male conspiracy to hold women down, just like the modern day medical industry is not a big male conspiracy to make life worse for women. On the contrary, if anything it's a big male conspiracy to make life better - more safe and comfortable - for women, and to make the work that women do much easier through the invention of, among other things, the vacuum cleaner, washing machine, clothes dryer, dishwasher, microwave oven, refrigerator, electric or gas stove, food processor, blender, toaster or toaster oven, Electric kettle, AC, Air purifier, Electric iron, Garbage disposal, as well as many other machines and devices. "Who’s to say women don’t work hard or long hours ?" Official labor statistics show that women don't work as many hours, that men are much more willing to work overtime, to work holidays, more willing to commute to work or to work abroad, etc. And as I mentioned in my original comment, it is motivated by women's own choices in selecting a partner which drive men to succeed in all areas. If you want to include non-paid labor, then it turns out that - despite what feminists might say - men and women actually work equal hours. In other words the notion that women work more than men because women also takes care of the home, is a myth. But the thing is, you can't compare taking care of someone else's business as an employee, with taking care of your own home and your own children (which is why it's unpaid). To equate these two things is a fallacy. "On top of that some women end up single moms, and have to keep a job or two to support their children." This is yet another example of the same sexist, female-centered focus. Many men end up single fathers, the difference is that they don't get nearly as much help from the state in paying for and raising their children, nor do they get to see their kids nearly as often, because masculinity is demonized and pathologized in society which means that fatherhood, in contrast to motherhood, is radically devalued and seen as non-necessary and non-integral to the family unit and to society in general, which is why women get automatic custody in 80 percent of cases, even when the father is objectively the better parent. Do women stand up for men, do women protest against this injustice? No, they are too busy complaining about how we devalue motherhood and how hard it is to be a mother. While men, who actually do have legitimate things to complain about, don't tend to complain, because if they do they are seen as weak and pathetic, in contrast to women who are seen as strong and empowered and who are just standing up for themselves. "Money is great, but when we die will you be remembered for how much was in your bank account or how you treated people?" I agree, and that's something for women to think about before they condemn men (and society) to such a fate by choosing men based on income. "“You keep the bread all to yourself and you get mold from it. You give a good girl a rose and you get gold from it. You give a woman a brick and you'll get a house from it”." It's funny you should say that because it is men who have always worked and shared their bread, literally and figuratively, with women. It is men who give women both the rose and the gold in the form of jewelry. And it is men who actually build the house from the brick they give themselves. But I know what you are trying to say, and that may have been true a long time ago, in pre-modern societies, but not any more, now it's all about demanding things without giving anything in return except complaints and accusations. "Men being gatekeepers of money turns into greed, and people living in poverty." Men are not the gatekeepers of money. SOME men have the ability - without necessarily acting on it, in fact, often they do the opposite - to gate-keep positions of power within companies and organizations, which is something very different. The money these men earn is then taxed and transferred to women through alimony, child support, social welfare, and a multitude of different entitlement programs directed specifically towards women and mothers. And within men's own household it is the woman who controls the household spending: Women spend 90% more than they make. Women earn 38.5% of earnings but spend 75% of domestic spending. Men earn 61.5% of all income but only account for 25% of spending. Men only spend 40% of what they earn after tax. In many cases such as divorced fathers it is actually under 30%, women get the rest. So if anything, it is women who are the gatekeepers of money, while men are the gate-keepers of the physically and mentally demanding jobs that most women don't want anyway. "Women cannot stand to see other women, and children starving." I know, and that is the problem. The problem is that women only focus on other women and children. For women men don't really exist other than as a means to get what they want, whether it's a nice house, romantic vacations, a fancy car, jewelry, a glamorous lifestyle and never having to pay for drinks and dinners. But in terms of showing care for and respecting men as an end in himself, that has never been women's focus. And this is evident from your own comment where almost every single sentence is solely focused on women as if men didn't even exist. It's all about women and their holy vaginas and all the holy things that come from the holy vagina. But this constant gynocentrism is getting a bit tiresome at this point. "If women had the upper hand on money there would be no poverty on earth I guarantee that." First of all, as I just explained, they do have "the upper hand on money" since the gendered division of labor means, roughly speaking, that men work while women spend. Secondly, this statement is not only a shameless display of female chauvinism and misandry, it is also not true. In fact, throughout history, queens were more likely to wage war than kings. Between 1480 and 1913, Europe’s queens were 27% more likely than its kings to wage war, according to a National Bureau of Economics working paper. And queens were also more likely to amass new territory during their reigns, found the paper’s authors, economists Oeindrila Dube and S.P. Harish. Starvation is just one of many negative consequences of those particular wars and acts of colonization. And in keeping with the logic of your female-centered comment, I guess "no poverty on earth" actually means "no poverty for women or girls", since men, as the breadwinners, are the ones tasked with the responsibility of providing the food, which might not lead them to starve to death, but it will lead many of them into a certain death nonetheless.

[@ariannagonzalez2618]

I think you missed the point completely. If you as a man were confident within yourself you wouldn’t see women as a threat. I’m sorry that my complaints were so tiresome, but this video was about women in art, and you made it a little bit about men. Talk about tiresome we’ve been mansplained to for years. It wasn’t until recently that we have felt somewhat safe in expressing thousands of years of frustration without being burned, or stoned for speaking up. I don’t hate men, and I’m not a radical feminist. I do think we can walk side by side without being threatened by one another’s strengths. Fun fact though wolves are matriarchal.

[@sacrificeofpraise1]

@@magnuskarlsson8655 you make great points. 👍

[@andy-ez7mk]

Great video. You shoukd use your own name, not your husband's I guess

[@rnkim2564]

so for large proportion of time prior and after you rant how women arent known in the art world yet you dont take the tme to google language sites that would FOR YOU, PRONOUNCE CORRECTLY their NAMES ??? it was excrutiating to hear you mispronounce their names while you knew and pronounced just fine the male names... isnt this a bit hypocritical😂? also your timelines jump around which is confusing for a HISTORICAL presentation and you like the rest of popular art world, spend WAY more time speaking about only the WELL KNOWN women like Kahlo and O'Keefe? your intent doesnt match the presenatation

[@andreuasencios3620]

i CORRECT YOUR clickbait: The Forgotten History of Professional WHITE Women Artists

[@alisonbarlow7836]

I agree; she should’ve talked about artists of color, like Shirin Neshat, Edmonia Lewis, Augusta Savage, etc. However, I do appreciate she acknowledges at least two artists of color, however on the other hand this could be seen as tokenizing, but at least she talked about artists of color. However, I didn't appreciate or agree with her critique of Yayoi Kusama.