When asked about art, the first painters that come to our minds are most likely Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, Leonardo da Vinci and so on. But what about all the underrated female painters, who helped shape and harden the history of the fine arts and the visual world in general. Regardless of all the barriers these women may have come across, they did not give up to pursue their passion and dreams just because of certain stereotypical beliefs. Pre-modernist art excluded women from its academies, so it is no surprise there were so few great female artists before 1900. In this article, we will introduce you to four immensely talented women who are not even a bit less than all the world-renowned male artists.
Clara Peeters
Clara Peeters was a Flemish 17th-century European painter. She is best known for her still-life paintings, mainly of food, meticulous brushwork, shading skills, and the art of arrangement of the objects on her paintings. By her uniqueness, she contributed greatly to the development of the traditions of Netherlandish ontbijtjes - “Breakfast Pisces.”
Despite women being excluded from most of the art academies, Clara Peeters managed to become a professional in her field of interest. Most of an artist's personal life is unclear. Although it is known that she took training in the field in Antwerp, Belgium (an early center of the still-life specialization) - based on her early canvases.
The painting shown above is called Still Life with Nuts, Candy and Flowers, one of the most popular works of the artist which quite well sums up her preferred style in the field of arts.
Clara Peeters was rather unusual for her time because she was a female painter, the earliest significant woman painter of the Dutch Golden Age. She, just like all the women painters in the seventeenth century, painted in still-life style - the only accessible style of art to women- just because teaching anatomy for purposes of art to women was forbidden.
Clara Peeters was also the first woman artist to have a solo exhibition at Museo del Prado (Madrid – Spain), called The Art of Clara Peeters.
Talking about Clara Peeters we can not forget about one of her most unique techniques she used in most of her paintings. The artist used to incorporate her own self-portraits in the reflections of certain objects in her canvases. The purpose of this act was to demonstrate her proudness of being a woman painter in her epoch.
Florine Stettheimer
Florine Stettheimer (1871–1944) was an American avant-garde artist best known for her colorful brushy paintings. Her principal goal was to depict Jazz age New York milieux in her works. Stetheimer was full of interests and passions, therefore, she not only pursued painting but also wrote poems and occasionally designed and created costumes for opera. Apart from that she likewise wrote a book of her poems named Crystal Flowers. Her poetry mainly focused on sentimentally depicting life in New York in the Jazz Age. She wrote about her love for art and her hometown.
Talking about Florine Stettheimer, we should not forget that she was the first female painter to paint a feminist nude self-portrait. Her portrait was rather unprecedented at that time and in that society, however, Stettheimer was quite proud of it - therefore making the canvas the centerpiece of her studio. Because of this particular art piece, Stettheimer was labeled with phrases like “eccentric spinster.” She then, after a few exhibitions, was disheartened by public reaction and was forced to stop displaying the piece (while other male painters were exhibiting a similar style of canvases and were only getting praised for them). Fluorine Stettheimer was all for equality. For a reference, let’s recall her art studio, where men and women worked simultaneously on as equal playing fields as was possible at that time.
As expected, the artist did not get a chance to study art with some of her age male children. She was sent to an all-girls boarding school and later was taking private art lessons from Sophie von Preiser.
After a few unsuccessful exhibitions, she developed her style - more specifically, she completely rejected traditional formalism and modernist abstraction. Her miniaturized, theatrical, and colorful canvases likewise included some of her quite easily identifiable family members and even friends.
Her most dear piece “Family Portrait II” (1939) -which she called her “masterpiece”- was to be exhibited two weeks post the artist’s death. The painting is inserted below and the reason why this painting was so near to heart to the painter herself, was because she incorporated her most beloved things in it: family (her mother and sister), friends, and New York.
Hilma af Klint
Hilma af Klint was a Swedish abstract painter in the 19th century. Her paintings are thought to be the first Western abstracts works known to the critics/art community nowadays. Although, she was naturally overlooked by society (painters like Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, and Piet Mondrian were more appreciated during the epoch of Hilma af Klint). Apart from being a painter, Hilma was also a mystic. She was a part of (and a founder of) a female group called “The Five.” The group’s main goal was to connect to “The High Masters.” Hilma financially supported herself, and successfully managed to make a living as an artist by selling her paintings of landscapes, portraits, etc.
An interesting fact about the artist is that she was one of the first females to ever study at an art university (Sweden was one of the first countries to ever offer women a proper education in art).
As it is visible above, her paintings are not quite easy to understand. The artist was fully aware of this fact and therefore, as a legacy, she wished for her works not to be made public or exhibited for 20 years, just because Hilma thought that the world was not ready for them - turns out, she was right!
Vera Pagava
And lastly, Vera Pagava - a Georgian painter. Vera Pagava lived in the period of World War Two and just as she was an active painter during this period of time, she also served as a nurse in hospitals. A few years prior to the war, the painter emigrated first to Germany then to France with her family, only when she was 13 years old. The artist is quite known for her unique and original vision. She is the first Georgian woman painter who became known for the originality of her vision - more specifically her style of art (abstract, the randomness of the objects on her canvases, and the frequently incorporated geometry). One interesting fact about Vera Pagava is that Picasso's wife considerably helped the artist with her first exhibition in Paris (Picasso's wife was generally quite successful in promoting and advancing young women artists).
Vera Pagava lived for eighty years and some critics even mention that her life could be considered as the beginning of the feminist chapter in Georgian art culture.
Author and Translator: Mariam Nozadze
Editor: Mariam Beshidze
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