In 2009, she experienced first-hand how scarce information about female artists is when she curated the exhibition with exclusively female art – at that time a novelty. One of them is Camille Morineau: “At the time the critics were macho, they could only write about men, but if you look at the list of artists in the exhibitions, you’ll find quite a lot of women artists in those shows.” Those who managed to assert themselves have mostly disappeared from the collective memory, but art historians are trying to help them regain visibility. Up until the 19 th century, women were barred from studying the nude model and certain prestigious institutions such as London’s Royal Academy of Art didn’t allow women to study at all. “In historical times, there was quite simply a lack of training opportunities, of options to gain visibility and thus also to gain a reputation,” says Katrin Hassler, art sociologist at the University of Lüneburg. To this day, only two works by women have made it into the top 100 auction sales of paintings, although about half of the top 25 have women as their subject. “As we all know, things as they are and as they have been, in the arts as in a hundred other areas, are stultifying, oppressive, and discouraging to all those, women among them, who did not have the good fortune to be born white, preferably middle class and, above all, male.” These lines were written by art historian Linda Nochlin in 1971 in her essay “Why have there been no great women artists?”, yet they seem to be just as relevant 50 years later. Even in the 21st century, women artists continue to be underrepresented in galleries, museums and at auctions – here’s why. The ten most expensive paintings in history were all painted by men.
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