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Week 2 - Clara Peeters, Still Life with Flowers, Goblet, Dried Fruit, and Pretzels
Clara Peeters, born in Antwerp, was a trailblazer in still-life painting. In Still Life with Flowers, Goblet, Dried Fruit, and Pretzels, her precise detail and balanced design elevate common objects into meaningful symbols. Themes of transience and virtue reflect both technical mastery and deeper values. Peeters created space for women’s artistry by turning careful observation into powerfully expressive art. -
Week 2 -Judith Leyster, The Proposition
Judith Leyster, a rare female member of the Haarlem Guild, painted genre scenes with sharp insight. In The Proposition, a woman sews as a man offers her coins. The quiet tension critiques gender dynamics and domestic expectations. Rather than romanticizing, Leyster gives the woman dignity and moral focus, subtly challenging the male gaze and redefining women's roles in 17th-century art. -
Week 3 - Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi, Pointing to Her Children as Her Treasures
Born in 1741, Angelica Kauffmann was one of the first women in the Royal Academy and a rare female history painter. Her neoclassical work Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi shows a Roman woman presenting her sons as her true treasures, rejecting wealth. The painting features balanced composition, classical detail, and moral storytelling. I chose this piece for how it blends feminine virtue with classical heroism, challenging gender norms within accepted academic frameworks. -
Week 3 - Marie Antoinette and Her Children
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842) was a leading portraitist and official painter to Marie Antoinette. One of few women in the French Royal Academy, she shaped royal imagery through neoclassical style. In Marie Antoinette and Her Children, the queen appears as a devoted mother, with soft lighting and balanced composition echoing Madonna imagery. I chose this work for how it constructs female identity and shows the artist navigating elite spaces with purpose. -
Week 4 - Mary Cassatt – The Tea
Mary Cassatt was an American Impressionist who focused on the lives of upper-class women. In The Tea, two women sit in a richly decorated room, enclosed by dark tones and quiet formality. The scene shows how limited and emotionally restrained women’s lives could be, even in leisure. Cassatt’s work reflects a critique of domestic expectations and the confined “spaces of femininity” women were expected to inhabit. -
Week 4 - Luncheon of the Boating Party
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French Impressionist known for scenes of public leisure. In Luncheon of the Boating Party, men and women dine on a bright terrace, full of life and flirtation. Though the mood is carefree, the women are idealized and often passive, serving a decorative role. The painting reflects a male-centered vision of modern life, where women are visible but not empowered or complex in their representation. -
Week 6 - Käthe Kollwitz, Woman with Dead Child
German expressionist Käthe Kollwitz used stark black-and-white prints to portray themes of war, grief, and motherhood. Woman with Dead Child shows a mother curled protectively around her lifeless child. The emotional intensity, heavy shadows, and absence of background reflect modernist realism. This work has an incredibly powerful feminist critique of war and a raw portrayal of maternal suffering. -
Week 5 - Gabriele Münter, Jawlensky and Werefkin
Münter was a pioneer in German Expressionism and co-founder of Der Blaue Reiter. Her use of bold color, contour lines, and flattened space in Jawlensky and Werefkin reflects early abstract methods. By centering fellow artists, she asserted women’s presence in modernism, challenging male-dominated narratives in both subject and style. -
Week 5 - Lyubov Popova, Painterly Architectonic
Popova was a leading figure in Russian Constructivism. Painterly Architectonic is a nonobjective work using only line, color, and shape to convey energy and rhythm. Rejecting traditional narrative, she embraced art as a tool for revolution and proved women could lead in abstract, theoretical, and industrial design spaces. -
Week 6 - Hannah Höch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada...
Hannah Höch, a Dada artist and photomontage pioneer, critiqued gender roles and politics in Weimar Germany. Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada... uses chaotic collage to satirize male power and societal disorder. Fragmented figures and mechanical parts question identity and media influence. I selected this work because of its bold feminist message and its radical reimagining of how women exist in visual culture.