Here are ten books perfect for you or those on your gift list interested in art and artists – and they’re all by and about women.
Inventing the Modern: Untold Stories of the Women Who Shaped The Museum of Modern Art
by Ann Temkin and Romy Silver-Kohn
With fourteen chapters about pioneering women at MoMA, written by fourteen of the most important women writing about art, this book is about a dream team, chronicled by a dream team. It’s also about grit, determination, imagination, and appreciation all told by women who know about the professional difficulties and disparities the women who came before them faced (having faced their own). In each chapter you’ll find the story of a woman who helped build the world’s most revered collection of Modern Art and the museum that houses it. It’s revelatory, inspiring, and a must-read for anyone interested in the true stories behind masterpieces.
Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art
by Connie Butler (Editor, Introduction), Alexandra Schwartz (Editor), Griselda Pollock (Introduction), Aruna D’Souza (Introduction)
Once you’ve discovered the women who founded and built the Museum of Modern Art, take the next step and find out about the extraordinary women artists the museum has chosen to highlight, exhibit, and collect. Published in 2010, this survey includes more than 50 essays by curators, art historians and critics, discussing works by women spanning the 20th and early 21st centuries. From Diane Arbus to Marguerite Zorach, get to know the women who made Modern Art.
Great Women Sculptors
by Phaidon Editors
Following up their immensely popular books, Great Women Artists and Great Women Painters, Phaidon now presents the lavishly illustrated, gorgeously produced, Great Women Sculptors. With more than 300 sculptors covering more than 500 years, you’re definitely going to discover a woman artist you haven’t known before. Each profile is brief but enough of a bite that you’ll likely go looking for more as you learn about the women who carved a name for themselves in the history of art.
Ruth Asawa Through Line
by Kim Conaty and Edouard Kopp
Known for her ethereal, complex wire sculptures, Ruth Asawa, an American artist of Japanese descent, once said that she started weaving sculptural forms because she envisioned lines that she couldn’t figure out how to draw. This exhibition catalog draws a timeline of her life – from learning art from Disney animators with whom she shared an internment camp during World War II, to having works purchased by major museums, to spending her later years as a teacher and community organizer. But really it’s the more than 100 reproductions of drawings that make this book a joy to behold.
Judy Chicago: Revelations
by Judy Chicago
If you know anything about contemporary women artists, you probably already know Judy Chicago, the feminist artist who set out to rewrite history to include the accomplishments of women in her grand opus “The Dinner Party.” Here, she presents the stories of women written out of history in a richly illuminated manuscript which she worked on for over 50 years. For those who’ve always wished they could own a work by Judy Chicago, here it is.
For young artists and art historians
This Book Will Make You An Artist
by Ruth Millington (Author) and Ellen Surrey (Illustrator)
With inspiring stories about artists from history and clever ways to try the techniques for which they became known, this children’s book brings knowledge, fun, and finished works of art. Millington is a serious art historian, so expect fascinating kernels of wisdom as well as engaging, interactive lessons for young artists up to their late teens (and don’t be surprised if parents or grandparents want to create along with the kids).
Discover Her Art: Women Artists and Their Masterpieces
by Jean Leibowitz and Lisa Rogers
For the young art historian, female or male, the other half of art history is the story of women artists. Twenty-four are featured in this illustrated, easy to read introduction. There are chapters on women artists from Renaissance Italy, through French Impressionists, to American Abstract Expressionists. Each tells the artist’s life story, and reproductions introduce their works. It’s past time that art history books became more inclusive. This book will get young art lovers pointed in the right direction – along many different paths.
Top photo: Bigstock
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