Heather Ball - Astonishing Women Artists

ASTONISHING WOMAN ARTISTS

by Heather Ball

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Ball, Heather, 1978
Astonishing women artists / by Heather Ball.
(The women's hall of fame series) Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-897187-23-4
I. Women artists Biography Juvenile literature. I. Title.
II. Series: Women's hall of fame series
N4O-34 2007 j709.22 C2007-900000-2

Copyright 2007 by Heather Ball

Edited by Sandra Braun
Designed by Melissa Kaita

Printed and bound in Canada

Second Story Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program.

Published by
Second Story Press
20 Maud Street, Suite 401
Toronto, ON
M5V 2M5
www.secondstorypress.ca

For my grandparents,
Bill and Rhoda Hayes

Art, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. If you look at a painting, you might see something that moves you to feel great joy, while the person next to you might see and feel something quite different. Although art is often displayed in public galleries and museums, it is very personal. When artists create something, they are putting their soul into the work, hoping that at least one viewer will recognized that and feel a connection to the piece. Artists have a special way of seeing the world, and every successful artist has a unique vision.

It's hard to believe that less than a hundred years ago, women weren't allowed to attend the best art schools. Their work was not considered as good as that of male artists. They weren't taken seriously as artists, simply because of their gender. With few or no role models, women artists had to forge their own paths.

In this book, you will read about ten women who made art their lives. They all had struggles and challenges to overcome, but they all used their art as way to work through their difficulties. They never gave up. Artemisia Gentileschi overcame a traumatic event to become one of the very few female painters of the seventeenth century. Elisabeth Vige Le Brun wasn't allowed to take art classes because she was a woman, so she taught herself and became a successful artist and businesswoman. Emily Carr could barely afford to eat, but she kept up her painting and became one of Canada's most recognized artists. Georgia O'Keeffe went against convention and painted more from her heart than from the examples in art class and Americans embraced her unique way of seeing the world. Louise Nevelson worked at her sculpture for more than thirty years before she got the recognition she deserved. Kenojuak Ashevak had no idea that she wanted to create art, but when she began drawing to express her Inuit culture, she found she couldn't stop. Frida Kalho had a famous artist husband, but she never let herself be overshadowed. Her deeply personal work carved her a place in history as the soul of Mexico. Elizabeth Catlett was the victim of racism and sexism, but she didn't let ignorance or negative comments stop her from creating the art that was in her soul. Faith Ringgold searched for a way to express herself both as an African American and as a woman, and she found her outlet for expression through her story quilts. Mary Pratt struggled to balance her identity as a wife and mother with her desire to be an artist until she found that she could be all these things.

Today, more and more women are becoming recognized artists. In fact, some of the most famous artists are women. After you've read this book, I hope you go beyond its pages and find out about other women artists. Speak to your teachers, librarians, or art teachers and ask them if they have favorite female artists. Or maybe visit a museum or gallery and discover some for yourself. And if you feel particularly inspired, pick up a pencil or a paintbrush, get your hands in some clay, find some colored thread or construction paper, and see what you can create. In art, the only limit is your imagination.

ART SPEAKS FOR ITSELF

Hundreds of years ago, even if a woman had artistic talent, she wasn't always allowed to practice her skills. Or if she was able to hone her art, she had few female role models to look up to and had to work hard to prove herself as a serious artist on her own terms. Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the few successful professional female artists in seventeenth-century Europe, was a trailblazer who worked in the male-dominated art world and became a role model herself.

Artemisia was born on July 8, 1593, in Rome, Italy. She was the oldest of four children. Her father, Orazio Gentileschi, was a well-known painter and her mother, Prudentia Montone, raised the family.

No one expected, or even imagined, that Artemisia would grow up to become an artist, least of all her father. In Italy in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries, women didn't have many choices in their lives. It was very rare for a woman to have a career. A woman's options were to marry and have children or to become a nun, which is what Orazio wanted his first-born daughter to become.

The Roman art scene was very exciting when Artemisia was growing up. Many new churches and palaces were being built and then adorned with paintings. Artemisia was surrounded by artists always male because Orazio had many friends who were also painters. Her own godfather was a painter named Pietro Rinaldi; her brother Giovanni's godfather was the artist Giuseppe Cesari; and her brother Giulio's godfather was Wenzel Coebergher, a Flemish artist. Being surrounded by so much creativity no doubt influenced Artemisia, and she tried painting as soon as she was old enough.

By the time Artemisia was about nine years old, the artist Caravaggio had become very popular. People were familiar with many of his works, such as his painted decorations on the church of San Luigi dei Francesi, because they were in public places in Rome. He painted biblical scenes that rocked the art world because they were so dramatic, realistic, and decorative. This way of painting eventually became known as the baroque style. People also said that Caravaggio used live, nude models for his paintings.