Three Women Artists Who Rocked Art History
Mary Cassatt, Imogen Cunningham and Georgia Okeeffe
Oct 31, 2009
While art historians have continued to promote the careers of male artists, women in art history still get short shrift. The work of the three artists featured below is feminine, sensual and from three different perspectives. All three female artists are considered important because of the quality of their work and the influence they continue to have on contemporary artists.
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926)
In some ways, Mary Cassatt lived the life of an art superhero. This American painter and printmaker was born in Pennsylvania to a wealthy family, who gave her a classical education that carried Mary Cassatt all over Europe.
Mary Cassatt studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and later with master artists from Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Cassatt finally proves her worth as an artist through perseverance and hard work. When Mary Cassatt is invited by Edgar Degas to join the Impressionists, it’s like being asked to join the X-Men of the art super hero world and includes: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cezanne, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Berthe Morisot and Alfred Sisley.
Cassatt carves out an art niche for herself by creating realistic and impressionistic portraits of mothers and children. Motherhood is the most feminine occupation and Cassatt was able to portray this sentimental subject through fresh observation, and by avoiding the cliché. Read more about Mary Cassatt and look at some of her paintings and other artworks at this great site from The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976)
Born in Portland, Oregon she went on to study at the University of Washington in Seattle and was inspired by the photographs of Gertrude Kasebler to continue her own photography. Later Cunningham worked with photographer Edward C. Curtis in Seattle and with Robert Luther in Dresden Germany.
Cunningham became a successful photographer in Seattle and soon gained more nationwide acclaim. Imogen Cunningham broke new photographic ground by exhibiting nude pictures of her husband in 1915, shown by the Seattle Fine Arts Society. Imogene Cunningham could be called the Caravaggio of photography. Cunnungham’s sensual, black and white photographs of nudes and nature are feminine and felt.
Imogen Cunningham goes on to join the faculty at the California School of Fine Arts, along with Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Minor White. That’s a pretty amazing lineup of American photographic stars! Imogen continued to photograph up until age 93 when she passed away. Visit the Imogen Cunningham Trust online to find out more about photographic pioneer, Imogen Cunningham.
Strange But True: Imogen Cunningham and her husband Roi Partridge have three children named Gryffyd, Rondal and Padraic.
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986)
While Georgia O’Keeffe is forever linked to her art superstar Alfred Stieglitz, she was an art star in her own right very independent of Stieglitz. O’Keeffe’s most well known paintings are close-up abstractions of flowers and landscape paintings of her adopted home in New Mexico. O’Keeffe also made inroads into the art world for all female artists who followed.
Born to dairy farmers in Wisconsin, O’Keeffe went on to study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the famous Art Students League in New York City and the University of Virginia. O’Keeffe chose Abiquiu, New Mexico as her residence and her home became a gathering place for other artists and celebrities of the era. There is a Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Sante Fe, New Mexico that pays homage to this great American artist and painter.
