The American Civil War (1861–1865) was one of the first armed conflicts documented by photography. Soldiers often had portraits made of themselves before they reported for duty. Such images, often produced in multiples approximately the size of a credit card, were small, portable, and inexpensive—ideal for sharing with loved ones. This photograph, taken in Samuel Masury’s Boston-based studio, is of Frances Clayton, a Minnesotan farmer and newly enlisted soldier; she is photographed in a Union army uniform. Clayton disguised her sex in order to join the army, which prohibited women from serving. It is thought that she served in a Missouri regiment alongside her husband, who died in battle. In the United States, women were not permitted to enlist in the military until 1917, during the last years of World War I. What does this image reveal to us about gender in the late 19th century? What ideas of gender are debated in the context of the military today?

The American Civil War (1861–1865) was one of the first armed conflicts documented by photography. Soldiers often had portraits made of themselves before they reported for duty. Such images, often produced in multiples approximately the size of a credit card, were small, portable, and inexpensive—ideal for sharing with loved ones. This photograph, taken in Samuel Masury’s Boston-based studio, is of Frances Clayton, a Minnesotan farmer and newly enlisted soldier; she is photographed in a female gender-conforming dress. Clayton disguised her sex in order to join the army, which prohibited women from serving. It is thought that she served in a Missouri regiment alongside her husband, who died in battle. In the United States, women were not permitted to enlist in the military until 1917, during the last years of World War I. What does this image reveal to us about gender in the late 19th century? What ideas of gender are debated in the context of the military today?

In this painting, Mary Cassatt pictures a mother and child in an intimate domestic scene, perhaps in the mother’s bedroom. The girl’s nudity suggests that she may be fresh from her bath. The mother gently supports the child’s shoulder with one hand, holding up a hand mirror to the child with the other. Notice the multiple reflections produced by the mirrors, and how the artist repeats shapes, forms, and colors in the painting. You may also notice the large sunflower pinned to the woman’s dress, almost at the center of the painting: it is an emblem associated with the American women suffragist movement. The sunflower appeared on a suffragist badge advocating for women’s right to vote in the presidential election of 1904—about a year before this painting was made. Mary Cassatt was one of just three women (and the only American) to exhibit with the French impressionist painters. This influential art movement developed in Paris in the 1860s; the word “impression” described the artists’ intention of capturing moments from everyday life. How might the point of view of a female artist at this time affect her representation of everyday life?

Anna Hyatt Huntington is best known for bronze statuettes of exotic animals. The New York Zoological Park (now the Bronx Zoo) provided the artist with ready models and she challenged herself to capture the animals in motion, expressing their typical behavior, gait, or posture. Animal sculptures became the mainstay of her career, and she sold numerous casts first to individual collectors and eventually to major museums. Her ambitions grew with her success and she won a commission from New York City for a monumental equestrian statue of Joan of Arc, a popular symbol of female strength, independence, and suffrage. (The memorial remains on view in Riverside Park today.)

Anna Hyatt Huntington is best known for bronze statuettes of exotic animals. The New York Zoological Park (now the Bronx Zoo) provided the artist with ready models and she challenged herself to capture the animals in motion, expressing their typical behavior, gait, or posture. Animal sculptures became the mainstay of her career, and she sold numerous casts first to individual collectors and eventually to major museums. Her ambitions grew with her success and she won a commission from New York City for a monumental equestrian statue of Joan of Arc, a popular symbol of female strength, independence, and suffrage. (The memorial remains on view in Riverside Park today.)

Anna Hyatt Huntington is best known for bronze statuettes of exotic animals. The New York Zoological Park (now the Bronx Zoo) provided the artist with ready models and she challenged herself to capture the animals in motion, expressing their typical behavior, gait, or posture. Animal sculptures became the mainstay of her career, and she sold numerous casts first to individual collectors and eventually to major museums. Her ambitions grew with her success and she won a commission from New York City for a monumental equestrian statue of Joan of Arc, a popular symbol of female strength, independence, and suffrage. (The memorial remains on view in Riverside Park today.)
Huntington occasionally turned to more personal projects, as represented by this sensitive and dignified marble bust of her mother, Audella Beebe Hyatt (1840–1932). Audella was also an artist and encouraged Anna’s artistic talents. Sculptural busts of elder women are significantly less frequent than those of elder men.  

Cecilia Beaux pictures her cousin Sarah (identified with the Spanish derivation of her given name, Sarita) seated on a sofa with her feline companion, Sita (Spanish for “little one”), in a moment of repose and reflection. You can imagine the cat’s slight weight on the woman’s shoulder, soft fur brushing her ear, while she absently reaches up to scratch the cat in turn. The understanding between the woman and her pet is underscored by the play of their names as well as their two sets of eyes in alignment: the cat looks out at us, while Sarita’s gaze is distant. Hair and fur pelt—glossy and dark—also blend together. The portrayal of a relaxed and intimate moment at home suggests a level of trust between the two women, sitter and painter. Beaux was a successful independent portraitist, among the few self-supporting women artists of the early 20th century. She traveled to Europe to pursue artistic training, spending time in Spain as well as France and England. What words would you use to describe the subject of this painting? Would you identify this work as an act of feminism? Why or why not?  

Elizabeth Catlett created this commanding image of Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross, c. 1820–1913), the Underground Railroad conductor and abolitionist, pointing the way to freedom. Notice how the outsize figure of Tubman dominates the image, and how the bold and energetic black lines of the print suggest the perilous, fraught conditions Tubman and those under her protection navigated.

Catlett, who was the granddaughter of people who were enslaved, often focused on issues of Black and women’s history in her art. Her artistic influences included the social activism of Mexican muralists Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, which she learned about as a student at Howard University in Washington, DC. Another teacher, the American painter Grant Wood, encouraged her to draw upon what she knew best. “Of course, it was my own people,“ she noted.

At the time Catlett made this work, the civil rights movement was gaining ground in the United States. Why might Catlett have chosen to depict Harriet Tubman? What do Catlett’s artistic choices reveal about her perception of Tubman?

This drawing depicts an example of needlework from the late 19th century. Young women made samplers to practice needle arts and to demonstrate different embroidery stitches. If you enlarge the drawing (which is colored with gouache paint), you will see that it is so fine and realistic that it almost appears to be a photograph. The sampler includes a brick house, likely the 14-year-old maker’s home, and a quote from 18th-century English poet Alexander Pope (with some incomplete letters): “Teach me to feel another’s woe / To hide the fault I see / In mercy I to Others show / That Mercy shows to me.”

This work is part of the Index of American Design (IAD), a body of 18,000 drawings that chronicle the history of American decorative art, folk art, and craft objects from the 17th century until nearly the turn of the 20th century. The IAD was a project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), created during the Depression to provide employment to out-of-work people, including artists. There was a higher proportion of women working in the IAD project than in other federal art programs at the time, possibly indicating greater opportunity for women illustrators. These jobs were a small portion of the total WPA jobs created, the great majority of which were available in construction, building roads and infrastructure, and largely reserved for men.

Are there any activities in your own life that are viewed as belonging to a specific gender? How do you feel about this perception? If women artists were to continue to add work to the IAD today, how might the subject matter compare to these works of art?

This drawing depicts an example of needlework from the late 19th century. Young women made samplers to practice needle arts and to demonstrate different embroidery stitches. If you enlarge the drawing, you will see that it is so fine and realistic that it almost appears to be a photograph. The sampler offers the sentiment “What is home without Mother,” signaling traditional ideas of the mother as the heart of the home and of domestic life in general.

This work is part of the Index of American Design (IAD), a body of 18,000 drawings that chronicle the history of American decorative art, folk art, and craft objects from the 17th century until nearly the turn of the 20th century. The IAD was a project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), created during the Depression to provide employment to out-of-work people, including artists. There was a higher proportion of women working in the IAD project than in other federal art programs at the time, possibly indicating greater opportunity for women illustrators. These jobs were a small portion of the total WPA jobs created, the great majority of which were available in construction, building roads and infrastructure, and largely reserved for men.

Are there any activities in your own life that are viewed as belonging to a specific gender? How do you feel about this perception? If women artists were to continue to add work to the IAD today, how might the subject matter compare to these works of art?

This drawing depicts an example of needlework from the late 19th century. Young women crocheted items that could decorate clothing, tablecloths, and curtains. If you enlarge the drawing, you will see that it is so fine and realistic that it almost appears to be a photograph.

This work is part of the Index of American Design (IAD), a body of 18,000 drawings that chronicle the history of American decorative art, folk art, and craft objects from the 17th century until nearly the turn of the 20th century. The IAD was a project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), created during the Depression to provide employment to out-of-work people, including artists. There was a higher proportion of women working in the IAD project than in other federal art programs at the time, possibly indicating greater opportunity for women illustrators. These jobs were a small portion of the total WPA jobs created, the great majority of which were available in construction, building roads and infrastructure, and largely reserved for men.

Are there any activities in your own life that are viewed as belonging to a specific gender? How do you feel about this perception? If women artists were to continue to add work to the IAD today, how might the subject matter compare to these works of art?

Dorothea Lange’s photographs of people impacted by the Depression are her most well-known work. She wanted to show the public and politicians the reality and depth of the United States’ social and economic problems. Working for the Farm Security Administration, an agency created by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to address the plight of farmers affected by the dust bowl, Lange made many photographs of migrants who traveled to California during the 1930s seeking agricultural work. Yet work was scarce, and often migrants ended up unemployed in encampments, some set up as public relief programs. Here a young mother sits in front of her government-issued tent with her child at her feet. Her expression communicates a toughness and a kind of resignation. Lange sometimes shared her photographs with newspapers in order to draw the public’s attention to people’s suffering. On one occasion, the publication of her photographs in the San Francisco News resulted in an outpouring of 20,000 pounds of food donations for malnourished migrant workers.

Consider how the female experience might differ across socioeconomic class, race, and time. How does this image compare to another 1937 photo by Lange of a Japanese mother and daughter serving as agricultural workers?

At age 23, Helen Frankenthaler painted Mountains and Sea, a breakthrough work that has influenced generations of artists. Using thinned oils, she poured the paint in pools that flowed across the surface of her raw (or unprimed) canvas, which was placed on the floor. This process created luminous fields of transparent color, while some areas, mostly around the edges, were purposely left open and allowed the weave of the raw canvas to flatten the image. This “soak/stain” technique, which Frankenthaler pioneered, proved an important step forward for painting.

The title of this painting was inspired by a summer trip to Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada, where Frankenthaler encountered a view of the land and sea meeting in a clash of waves, rocky shore, and brilliant light. This work was shown in a gallery exhibition in 1953 in which not a single painting was sold. Frankenthaler would go on to become one of the most celebrated artists of her time.

Are there pioneering women who inspire you?

The role of color is of “paramount importance.” As Alma Thomas said, “through color I have sought to concentrate on beauty and happiness in my painting rather than on man’s inhumanity to man.” Thomas created this work when she was well into her seventies. The artist found inspiration in landscapes and flowers around her, which she stylized in shapes and patterns created with repeated, colorful brushstrokes. Her paintings are infused with personal memories and references; in this case, the work’s title refers not only to the springtime flowers that populate Washington, DC, where she lived, but also to the plucky song published in 1929 and famously recorded by Tiny Tim in 1968.

Although Thomas worked as an artist steadily her entire life, setting up a studio in her home, she was unable to make a living as an artist. As an African American woman who grew up in the South during the Jim Crow era, she experienced the additional weight of racism and segregation. Thomas chose one of the few options available to women who sought employment and financial independence: a degree in education, which she applied to a career of over 40 years teaching in Washington, DC, public schools, all the while painting during nights and on weekends. Upon retirement at age 69, she devoted herself full-time to art making. She realized a remarkable and productive “second act” in life, achieving visibility and, at age 80, a solo museum exhibition (at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York).

Consider your own community: Who are the artists around you? What can you find in your own environment that inspires you? Can you identify a text or song that shares the mood of this work of art?

Miriam Schapiro was a pioneer of feminist art beginning in the 1970s. Feminist art gave visibility and voice to the particular conditions of women’s personal and socioeconomic lives. Schapiro’s etchings of crochet recall drawings of similar objects from the Index of American Design (IAD). Traditional, embroidered samplers and examples of fine crochet made by generations of young women—and visually documented in the IAD—embody conventional expressions of domesticity. Schapiro’s works slyly subvert those ideals while also paying homage to household labor and activities performed largely by women. This etching commands “Take a Seat,” with an image of a chair replacing the final word. It was part of a series that recognized the unseen and uncredited work of women in the home, whether sewing, mending, cooking, or cleaning.  

Miriam Schapiro was a pioneer of feminist art beginning in the 1970s. Feminist art gave visibility and voice to the particular conditions of women’s personal and socioeconomic lives. Schapiro’s etchings of crochet recall drawings of similar objects from the Index of American Design (IAD). Traditional, embroidered samplers and examples of fine crochet made by generations of young women—and visually documented in the IAD—embody conventional expressions of domesticity. Schapiro’s works slyly subvert those ideals while also paying homage to household labor and activities performed largely by women. This etching looks like a bread doily through which some flour has left a corresponding grid. (The duplicate white image was created by putting the same plate, uninked, through the printing press.) The shape of the sampler also suggests a dollar bill—perhaps a pun on the word “bread,” as well as the idea that this was the only kind of “bread” women could make at certain points in history. This etching was part of a series that recognized the unseen and uncredited work of women in the home, whether sewing, mending, cooking, or cleaning.

Laurie Simmons creates fictional tableaux which she carefully lights and photographs. Some are miniature scenes, such as this one of a woman/doll in a kitchen. While the picture looks like it could be a peek into a dollhouse, the way in which Simmons presents the scene suggests something off-kilter and discomfiting. The black-and-white photograph and its dramatic lighting evoke old Hollywood films of the mid-twentieth century. During that time, popular culture—including movies and toys—often reinforced gender stereotypes, depicting women in domestic roles. In Woman/Purple Dress/Kitchen, a clock shows the time as just after six o’clock: Is it early evening and the woman/doll awaits the arrival of her spouse? As is often the case with dollhouses, the proportions of the objects are slightly off. Here an array of baked goods, kitchen utensils, and a giant radio on the table are half as large as the woman/doll standing behind them.

Consider how you observe, internalize, and challenge gender roles in your life. Do you see any evidence of changing viewpoints in society? What are they?

Betye Saar is a Los Angeles–based artist who mingles personal history, mythology, and folk art to reflect upon her life and the African American experience. Twilight Awakening centers on a powerful central figure who hovers between the space of sea and land, the moon and star. The work’s symbology indicates that the figure is Aquarius, the Water Bearer. The signs of the zodiac derive from Roman antiquity, visualizing the passage of time through labor and activities associated with different times of the year. The work is a three-dimensional assemblage: it is made on a wooden base of a recycled printer’s block, to which Saar added scavenged and sculpted pieces of plastic, ceramic, and glass. These personal objects, bearing marks of use and history, lend a magical power to the tiny panel measuring only 3 ¾ × 4 ½ × ¾ inches. Who are the storytellers in your life? How do they share their stories?

This picture consists of four panels that are 26 feet long altogether. The painting’s grand horizontal scale with its bright lemon-yellow background, white plumes in the middle ground, and green and blue textures suggest immersion in a sunny summer landscape, radiating light, open air, and nature. Mitchell said, “My paintings…aren’t about art issues. They’re about a feeling that comes to me from the outside, from landscape.” In what ways is it possible to visually portray intangible things like a feeling?

Do you think gender identity must be addressed or made visible in a woman’s work of art? What are the limitations that have been placed on women in all fields, historically and now?

In this image, a girl is dressed formally for her fiesta de quince años, or quinceañera, to mark her entry into womanhood. This special recognition of the 15th birthday is a custom in Mexican and other Latin American cultures. Graciela Iturbide contrasts this celebration of emerging adulthood with the presence of the girl’s grandmother seated in the foreground, whose appearance suggests a life of hardship. The expressions of the two relatives are distant and difficult to read.

Iturbide is among the foremost figures in Mexican photography, known for her work documenting Indigenous cultures around the world. In 1978 the Instituto Nacional Indigenista hired her to photograph Mexico’s Indigenous populations. As part of that work, she traveled to Juchitán, whose inhabitants are of Zapotec heritage, with a matriarchal society. This photograph is from that project, collectively published as Juchitán de las Mujeres (1989).

Graciela Iturbide is among the foremost figures in Mexican photography, known for her work documenting Indigenous cultures around the world. In 1978 the Instituto Nacional Indigenista hired her to photograph Mexico’s Indigenous populations. As part of that work, she traveled to Juchitán, whose inhabitants are of Zapotec heritage, with a matriarchal society. This photograph is from that project, collectively published as Juchitán de las Mujeres (1989).

Iturbide’s practice involves immersing herself into the communities that she photographs. While shopping for groceries one day, she was approached by Magnolia, who wanted her picture taken. Magnolia was part of a community of muxes, individuals assigned male at birth but who identify as other genders. In some Indigenous cultures, muxes are considered a third gender and people with special powers. Magnolia holds a mirror up to her profile, doubling her image and suggesting the multiple ways that identity may be presented.  

The Guerrilla Girls is an anonymous and ever-changing group of women artists, curators, and writers who use performances, public demonstrations, and visual art to advocate for greater representation of diverse artists in museums, galleries, art publications, and other creative pursuits. The Guerrilla Girls dress in full-body gorilla suits to perform guerrilla actions, such as protests, on behalf of women and other underrepresented groups in the art world. The costumes disguise their real identities and allow them to assume the pseudo-identities of famous women artists. This satirical gesture familiarizes women artists’ names while also preventing the individuals from being blackballed by the institutions against which they protest.

This lithograph is considered a fine art object, yet the image/text has been produced in different formats and materials to function as a protest poster, similar to what you might see in a demonstration or plastered on bus stop shelters or walls. The Guerrilla Girls collect data and statistics upon which they base their clever and boldly headlined messages about art world inequities. To date, approximately 11 percent of the artists represented in the National Gallery of Art collection are women.

Do you find this an effective form of activism to address sexism? Why or why not? What other methods have activists used today and in the recent past to address sexism?

Barbara Kruger got her start working as a graphic designer at Glamour magazine in the late 1960s. Before digital page layout existed, graphic designers made “paste-ups” comprising collaged elements—such as titles, texts, captions, and images—to create a designed page. The collage was then photographed for reproduction in the magazine. Kruger has riffed on this process in her work as a visual artist. Using a distinctive graphic style, she exposes power dynamics in her personal life, work, and politics. This image depicts a woman receiving a mysterious treatment to her eye administered by the faceless figure of a medical professional in the background. The three red bars with text divide the medical instrument in the top half from the receptive, passive woman in the bottom half with the ominous text: “Know nothing / Believe anything / Forget everything.” What might those words imply?

Why do you think the artist uses text alongside her image? How does the text relate to the image that it is paired with? How can art be a vehicle for social critique?

This close-up self-portrait by Myra Greene addresses the complexity of how we see other people and what we can know by seeing them. The photograph isolates and fragments a part of Greene’s face, denying us the ability to see her as a whole. The work intentionally uses a vintage photography technique called ambrotype to allude to a 19th-century version of racial profiling in which photography was used to classify facial features to support white supremacy. This photograph is part of a series titled Character Recognition. Greene began this project in 2006, noting, “Confronted with an up swell of bigotry both personal and public, I was forced to ask myself, what do people see when they look at me. Am I nothing but black? Is that skin tone enough to describe my nature and expectation in life?”

Could this work be considered an act of intersectional feminism? Why or why not?  

This close-up self-portrait by Myra Greene addresses the complexity of how we see other people and what we can know by seeing them. The photograph isolates and fragments a part of Greene’s face, denying us the ability to see her as a whole. The work intentionally uses a vintage photography technique called ambrotype to allude to a 19th-century version of racial profiling in which photography was used to classify facial features to support white supremacy. This photograph is part of a series titled Character Recognition. Greene began this project in 2006, noting, “Confronted with an up swell of bigotry both personal and public, I was forced to ask myself, what do people see when they look at me. Am I nothing but black? Is that skin tone enough to describe my nature and expectation in life?”

Could this work be considered an act of intersectional feminism? Why or why not?  

This close-up self-portrait by Myra Greene addresses the complexity of how we see other people and what we can know by seeing them. The photograph isolates and fragments a part of Greene’s face, denying us the ability to see her as a whole. The work intentionally uses a vintage photography technique called ambrotype to allude to a 19th-century version of racial profiling in which photography was used to classify facial features to support white supremacy. This photograph is part of a series titled Character Recognition. Greene began this project in 2006, noting, “Confronted with an up swell of bigotry both personal and public, I was forced to ask myself, what do people see when they look at me. Am I nothing but black? Is that skin tone enough to describe my nature and expectation in life?”

Could this work be considered an act of intersectional feminism? Why or why not?  

This etching is part of a series—An Unpeopled Land in Uncharted Waters—whose six works refer to the transatlantic slave trade. Its title, no world, may be a pun on “New World,” referring to dislocation and an in-between state. The image, resembling an illustration from a graphic novel, communicates a narrative of mythological proportion. The sailing ship, alluding to a vessel used in the forced transport of African people to the Americas, is being lifted out of heaving seas by giant black hands. A dramatic column of black and white clouds clash in the sky above, suggesting conflict, while beneath the water, a floating female figure faces downward. A long wave moves toward the shore, upon which stand two distant, caricatured silhouetted figures with some spindly plants, perhaps a reference to the 19th-century agricultural economy that depended on the labor of enslaved people. Kara Walker’s work addresses the violent, traumatic history of slavery and its legacy. A female figure is a prominent part of this work. Why might Walker have made the choice to include this figure, and to give her prominence in the foreground?

Artist Lee Seung-Hee adopted an Americanized name, Nikki S. Lee, when she moved to the United States from South Korea. In this photograph, we see the time-honored ritual of talking and applying makeup in the ladies’ room. The image even has an orange time stamp that dates it to June 14, 1998.

Lee’s photographs are a component of a larger, performance-based project begun in New York City to explore a range of self-identifying cultures, some based on gender or race, others on intersecting music, fashion, or professional subcultures. Over a period of months, Lee would assimilate herself into a particular group, forming relationships and building trust. Next, she transformed herself through dress, makeup, and gesture so that she appeared to be a member of that culture. She then documented her inclusion in the group by giving her point-and-shoot camera to one of her new friends. In this image, we see Lee in the foreground applying lip liner.

What questions does this image raise about group identity and acceptance, whether based on culture or gender?

Rozeal uses the title of this work, a play on Aphrodite, ancient Greek goddess of love and beauty, to present a cross-cultural rebellion on beauty ideals that traverses the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.

Rozeal spent time in Japan through a fellowship program and became interested in the ganguro style, whereby young Japanese women counter traditional beauty norms by wearing skin-darkening makeup, dying their long hair blonde, and applying long nail tips. As a DJ and performance artist, Rozeal underscores ganguro’s references to African American hip-hop culture—seen in the words “back and forth” repeated in the background, a quotation from the song “Whip My Hair” by Willow Smith, while music discs frame the figure. The stylized appearance and pose of the figure recall Japanese 19th-century ukiyo-e prints, which traditionally depict a fantasy world of nightlife and geisha. What does beauty mean to you? What does this work of art make you think about women in your own community and culture?

This delicate work, smaller than a standard sheet of paper, is carefully constructed from fibers. Sheila Hicks has built a long career exploring the intersections between so-called fine art and textiles. In so doing, she has brought artistic practices like weaving and tapestry, which are often denigrated as crafts and women’s work, into the mainstream. Hicks enrolled at the Yale School of Art during the 1950s and studied with Josef Albers, an abstract artist and color theorist originally from Germany. As a student, Hicks also became acquainted with the work of Albers’s wife, Anni Albers, considered one of the foremost textile artists and designers of the 20th century. A grant to study painting in Chile sparked Hicks’s interest in Indigenous textile traditions and led her to embark on a self-guided tour through every country of South America. During her nomadic career, she has developed fiber arts workshops in Mexico, Chile, and South Africa. Today she works largely from a studio in Paris. Hicks’s work spotlights the time and labor that textile arts entail—hours spent in repetitive motions and gestures to create pliable forms that reveal the traces of their making. Although bound by their structure, her works often appear remarkably free and expressive. Modestly scaled works, such as, Embedded Thoughts, made of narrow strips of fragile paper wrapped in tiny threads of silk, serve as “sketches” in which the artist works through experimental ideas. Are there any traditions that have been passed down among women in your community or culture? Do you participate in these traditions? Why or why not?