This gallery brings together works by an international group of women artists from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, an incredibly rich period in the history of the struggle for women’s rights around the world. These artists engaged with feminism and femininity by drawing on personal histories or staking positions on social issues. Some took a distinctly conceptual approach in establishing the ground for the intermingling of art and politics or in offering a feminist critique of the traditional boundaries of gender in their societies. Others communicated the experiences of women in more sensuous or intuitive ways. “I always feel the painting come from my soul,” declared the artist Kamala Ibrahim Ishag. Her evocative painting of a commune of women undergoing a supernatural transformation anchors this wide-ranging ensemble of works by women who have inspired myriad artists after them.
Organized by Smooth Nzewi, The Steven and Lisa Tananbaum Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, with Danielle Johnson, former Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings and Prints.
