If you would like to explore the history of women artists further, these books offer excellent starting points. Some provide broader histories of women in art, while others explore individual artists featured in this project.

Women, Art and Art History

Katy Hessel — The Story of Art Without Men
An accessible and richly illustrated history of women artists from the Renaissance to the present day.

Whitney Chadwick — Women, Art, and Society
A comprehensive history of women artists and the social and institutional circumstances in which they worked.

Linda Nochlin — Women, Art, and Power and Other Essays
Includes the influential essay Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?, which examines the barriers to artistic training, opportunity and recognition.

Griselda Pollock — Vision and Difference: Feminism, Femininity and Histories of Art
An important examination of the ways in which traditional histories of art have been constructed.

Germaine Greer — The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work
A thought-provoking exploration of the obstacles historically faced by women painters.

E. H. Gombrich — The Story of Art
One of the most influential introductions to Western art history. Reading it alongside newer histories provides a fascinating opportunity to consider how the artistic canon is created — and how it changes over time.

Explore the Artists

For those who would like to discover more, here is one recommended book for each of the twelve artists featured in this project.

Sofonisba Anguissola

Michael W. Cole — Sofonisba’s Lesson: A Renaissance Artist and Her Work
A detailed exploration of Anguissola’s remarkable career, her innovative portraiture and her position as a professional woman artist in Renaissance Europe.

Lavinia Fontana

Aoife Brady — Lavinia Fontana: Trailblazer, Rule Breaker
A beautifully illustrated study of Fontana’s life and work, examining the extraordinary career she built as a professional painter in sixteenth-century Bologna and Rome.

Artemisia Gentileschi

Mary D. Garrard — Artemisia Gentileschi and Feminism in Early Modern Europe
An accessible and thought-provoking study placing Gentileschi’s paintings within the world in which she lived and examining the significance of her representations of women.

Judith Leyster

Frima Fox Hofrichter — Judith Leyster: A Woman Painter in Holland’s Golden Age
An important study of Leyster’s successful career, her distinctive paintings and the history of their later attribution and rediscovery.

Rachel Ruysch

Robert Schindler, Bernd Ebert and Anna C. Knaap (eds.) — Rachel Ruysch: Nature into Art
A richly illustrated modern study of Ruysch’s extraordinary flower paintings and her long and highly successful career.

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

Joseph Baillio, Katharine Baetjer and Paul Lang — Vigée Le Brun
A major study of Vigée Le Brun’s portraits and international career, produced in connection with the landmark retrospective of her work.

Rosa Bonheur

Anna Klumpke — Rosa Bonheur: The Artist’s (Auto)Biography
A fascinating account based on Bonheur’s own recollections and the writing of Anna Klumpke, the artist and companion who knew her personally.

Berthe Morisot

Anne Higonnet — Berthe Morisot
A substantial study of Morisot’s life and work that places her firmly at the centre of the Impressionist movement.

Paula Modersohn-Becker

Diane Radycki — Paula Modersohn-Becker: The First Modern Woman Artist
An illuminating study of Modersohn-Becker’s short but groundbreaking career and her distinctive representations of women, motherhood and the female body.

Hilma af Klint

Julia Voss — Hilma af Klint: A Biography
A compelling account of af Klint’s life, spiritual interests and extraordinary body of abstract work, much of which remained unseen during her lifetime.

Lee Krasner

Gail Levin — Lee Krasner: A Biography
A full account of Krasner’s life and artistic achievement that restores her independent place in the history of Abstract Expressionism.

Judy Chicago

Judy Chicago — The Flowering: The Autobiography of Judy Chicago
Chicago’s own account of her life, art and determination to challenge the structures of an art world in which women had so often been marginalised.

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These recommendations are intended as starting points rather than an exhaustive bibliography. Together they offer an opportunity to explore the lives, work and historical circumstances of each of the twelve artists featured in Forgotten Women Artists.