Recommended Reads: Notable Women Artists
"You will find the spirit of Caesar in this soul of a woman" - Artemisia Gentileschi
This list includes some (by no means all) of the most famous and notable names of women who have made lasting contributions to the art of the western tradition. Some are names you may recognize and others perhaps are new to you.
Recorded cassette (RC), braille (BR), and large print (LT) copies of these books are available from the Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library. Please contact the library to order any of these books. Also included are recorded cassette titles in foreign languages (RCF) and one music tape (CBM); these are available through inter-library loan on request.
Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera
RC 55556, BR 14458
Portrait of the twentieth-century Mexican artist often identified with the surrealists. Discusses the bus accident that brought her chronic pain from age eighteen until her death at forty-seven. Covers her tempestuous marriage to muralist Diego Rivera. Explores the relation between her paintings and her physical and mental anguish.
The Bride of the Wind: The Life and Times of Alma Mahler-Werfel by Susanne Keegan
RC 37234
The art world was home to Alma Mahler-Werfel, daughter of Viennese landscape artist Emil Schindler. Discussed is Werfel's life as the wife of three men, the composer Gustav Mahler, and the novelist Franz Werfel, and the mistress of many more. Keegan portrays Werfel as a talented woman against the cultural and political background of early twentieth-century Europe.
Lives of the Artists: Masterpieces, Messes (and What the Neighbors Thought) by Kathleen Krull
RC 48267, BR 11425
Portraits of twenty artists, providing information about their childhood years and the works that made them famous. Includes Michelangelo Buonarroti, Rembrandt van Rijn, Mary Cassatt, Henri Matisse, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Andy Warhol
Georgia O'Keeffe: The "Wideness and Wonder of her World" by Beverly Gherman
RC 24513
Biography of the ninety-seven-year-old nonconformist artist communicates her unique artistic vision, fierce discipline, and commitment to her work. Filled with O'Keeffe's feistiness and her "damn-the-torpedoes" ambitions. For junior and senior high readers.
Woman on Paper: Georgia O'Keeffe by Anita Pollitzer
RC 29516
An affectionate memoir about the artist, Georgia O’Keeffe, by a lifelong friend. Weaves together letters, reminiscences of the author and others, and writings by a number of critics.
Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life by Roxana Robinson
RC 31323
Georgia O’Keeffe struggled most of her ninety-eight years to capture the radiance of light, with paint on canvas. Robinson, an art historian, describes O’Keeffe’s early years in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin; her career as an art teacher; her relationship with photographer Alfred Stieglitz, first as protege, then as model and lover, and later as his wife; and her final years with a much younger companion, Juan Hamilton.
Mary Cassatt by Nancy Hale
RC 9842
Covers the life of a major American painter from her beginnings as a rich Philadelphian to her involvement with the work of Degas, the influence of the Japanese, and the impact of the Ancient Egyptian art.
The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland
RC 53658, LT 3045
Fictional treatment of the post-Renaissance Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1653). Begins with the pivotal event in her life: her humiliation at the trial of Agostino Tassi, her father's fellow artist, for the rape of Artemisia. Follows her successful career and stormy life.
Grandma Moses: My Life's History by Anna Mary Robertson Moses
BR 121
Written when Grandma Moses was 90, this autobiographical account tells of the artist's early life and the painting techniques with which she experimented when she found that she could no longer manage embroidery due to arthritis.
Grandma Moses: Painter of Rural America by Zibby Oneal
RC 26774
Anna Mary Robertson Moses, known as Grandma Moses, is a fondly remembered American folk artist known for her paintings of rural America. Born in New York in 1860, she began painting as a busy farm wife and mother of ten. She painted until she was 101 years old, and died in 1961. For grades 3-6.
Frida Kahlo by Hedda Garza
RC 39620
Biography of the Mexican painter who died in 1954 at the age of forty-seven with little worldwide recognition. By the 1970s, feminists in the U.S. and Europe had elevated Kahlo to an idol, and in the 1990s she was celebrated internationally. The author discusses Kahlo’s profound lifelong physical and emotional pain, her apparent dual personality, and her tumultuous marriage to muralist Diego Rivera. For grades 6-9 and older readers.
Frida by Ann Thompson
CBM 1424 (available through interlibrary loan from the NLS Music Collection)
Based on the life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, this opera by Robert Xavier Rodriguez had its 1991 premiere in Philadelphia. This is a discussion of the opera, not a recording of the opera. Included in this particular discussion are excerpts from the opera itself.
Beatrix Potter by Alexandra Wallner
RC 40963
Biography of the well-known author of children’s stories. Born in London in 1866, Potter spent her childhood painting and drawing animals. As an adult, she published a story she wrote for a friend’s child, The Tale of Peter Rabbit (RC13917). The tiny book illustrated with her drawings was very popular then and still is today. Beatrix went on to write many other tales and moved to a farm full of animals. For grades K-3.
Berthe Morisot by Anee Higonnet
RC 33306
An art historian, with access to Berthe Morisot's unpublished letters and private journals to support her research, writes of the artist's life and work in nineteenth-century France. As an early Impressionist painter, Morisot exhibited her work with Monet, Degas, Pissarro, Renoir, and Alfred Sisley. This biography details how Morisot achieved both professional and personal success as an independent woman who was also a wife and mother.
Impressionist Quartet: The Intimate Genius of Manet and Morisot, Degas and Cassatt by Jeffrey Meyers
RC 60835
Prolific biographer details the intertwined lives of four Parisian Impressionist painters of the nineteenth century. Describes their complex relationships and rivalry and reexamines their art. Portrays bohemian Edouard Manet and his intimate friend, Berthe Morisot, as well as visually impaired Edgar Degas and his close companion, American-born Mary Cassatt
Utrillo's Mother by Sarah Baylis
RC 33079
Suzanne Valadon, attempting to support herself, becomes a model and eventually a protégé of several famous French artists. Her brief success is eclipsed by the reputation of her famous son, Maurice Utrillo. These main points are the threads on which the author weaves a fictional account of the life of a woman who, buoyed by her convictions, struggles to overcome outrageous injustice.
Une Femme by Anne Delbée
RCF 385
Biography of Camille Claudel, eldest sister of the writer, Paul Claudel. Both as a woman and as a sculptress, Camille experienced a fate that was out of the ordinary. French language only.
Suzanne Valadon, ou, La Recherche de la Vérité by Jeanne Champion
RCF 612
Fictionalized biography of Marie-Clementine Valadon, called Suzanne, French painter and mother of Maurice Utrillo. She defied prejudices and prohibitions for the love of her art and numbered Toulouse-Lautrec and Erik Satie among her lovers. French language only.