Famous Russian women artists. Famous artists (women)

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Forerunners of the famous: Russian artists of the 19th century

Russia is rightfully proud of its artists - the “Amazons of the avant-garde” Goncharova or Rozanova, and before them - Serebryakova or Ostroumova-Lebedeva, and before them... And who came before them? We tell you who paved the way for prosperity women's creativity XX century. The question was studied by Sofya Bagdasarova.

The number of women painting began to increase like an avalanche starting in the 1900s. But in the previous century you can count them on one hand. This was due to both low availability female education, and with the patriarchal idea of ​​what professions are appropriate for ladies. The situation changed gradually.

Romanovs

Work of Maria Feodorovna, wife of Paul I. Portrait of Paul I. 1790

The first professional artists in Russia, of course, were foreigners - Dorothea Gsell (wife of the painter invited by Peter I), Marie-Anna Collot (daughter-in-law of the sculptor Falconet), Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (wife of the artist Jean-Baptiste Lebrun) and others.

Perhaps the first Russian artist was also a foreigner - this was Empress Maria Feodorovna, wife of Paul I. Russian Grand Duchess Since 1776, she enjoyed the fruits of her excellent German education: she wrote in pastels, drew on glass with lead pencils, and was also one of the first in the world to master the art of turning. Her best cameos on jasper or agate are portraits of relatives. The Empress's daughters also painted and sculpted bas-reliefs. And most importantly, Maria Feodorovna taught not only her children, but also was involved in the education of all her female subjects. She founded institutes and schools, invented learning programs, that is, she outlined a clear plan for the development of women's education in Russia, which the country adhered to for a century.

Her namesake, another Empress Maria Feodorovna (the wife of her great-grandson Alexander III), also practiced painting. Her daughter inherited her ability to draw, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna. This helped her feed her children in exile: even though her watercolors were not that talented, buyers were pleased to have something “from the Romanovs.”

Noblewomen-amateurs

Gradually, it became like in Europe: every educated young lady had to be able to dance, embroider and draw. Among the noblewomen of the Alexander and Nicholas eras, amateur artists appeared who decorated their albums and memorial books with various sketches. The ladies worked according to the model of the works of other artists: for example, the maid of honor Ekaterina Bakunina (married Poltoratskaya), the subject of Pushkin’s passion, created her “self-portrait” by making a copy of a drawing by Orest Kiprensky; her portraits of her mother and husband are also copies.

Some ladies mastered the pastel technique (the daughter of General Kamensky Alexandra Rzhevskaya, the niece of the Panin counts Alexandra Repnina). Young ladies from the Sheremetev, Dolgoruky, and Apraksin families were engaged in drawing. Painting miniatures on ivory was considered decent - as Anna Buturlina did, great-niece Chancellor Vorontsov. And the most talented ones dared to paint in oils - a labor-intensive “male” technique. Among them are the daughter of the head of the Smolny Institute, Alexandra Buhler, and Gogol’s cousin Glafira Psel, a pupil of the Governor-General of Little Russia.

G. Psel. Portrait of a sister. 1839

A. Buturlina. Self-portrait. 1817

E. Bakunina (Poltoratskaya). Portrait of a mother. 1828

Daughters and sisters

Maria Durnova. Portrait of a boy. 1820

Aristocrats, of course, were taught by visiting teachers. Girls born into artistic families mastered the arts differently. The earliest examples are apparently the daughter of the historical painter Trofim Durnova, Maria, and the famous genre painter, Alexandra Venetsianov. Venetsianova’s works are no longer amateurish, and she was not afraid to paint in oils. It’s just a pity that the dependence on a relative-teacher is obvious: of course, the girl created genre paintings. However, artists of later generations were also guilty of this: take Olga Lagoda-Shishkina, who studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts in the 1870s. She became first a student and then the wife of the famous Ivan Shishkin. Olga Lagoda-Shishkina, like her husband, painted in the landscape genre. Sofya Kuvshinnikova, his student and long-time lover, was inspired by the work of Isaac Levitan.

Towards the end of the century, women from artistic families find their own language. No one will blame Polenov’s talented sister Elena for imitating her fairy tales. The daughter of Konstantin Makovsky, Elena Luksh-Makovskaya, also had her own style.

Diligent students

Professional training for women began in the late 1830s, when drawing classes for girls were opened under the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. Evdokia Bakunina and Ekaterina Khilkova studied there. A painting by Khilkova depicting these activities has been preserved. Over time, women began to be accepted into the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Two students of the school, Antonina Rzhevskaya and Emilia Shanks, are the only women accepted into the Association of Itinerants. In 1842, women's evening classes were opened at the St. Petersburg Drawing School for volunteers in St. Petersburg.

Women were also admitted to the Imperial Academy of Arts - for the first time, as many as 30 people, including Shishkin's future wife, were admitted as volunteers. For women of the 19th century who began to think about emancipation, a milestone was 1854, when a woman, Sukhovo-Kobylin’s sister Sophia, received the Academy medal for the first time. (By the way, two years earlier, a woman became the president of the Academy - the emperor’s sister, Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna.) In 1873, at the Academy, female students were allowed to study in the same classes as students, but over time, the number of girls increased so much that they decided to make their own department out of them. Blended learning, and even in government agency, was an advanced phenomenon: so,

Artists are people who are able to speak publicly with society through the language of visual images and forms. However, their popularity and demand do not seem to depend at all on talent. Who was the most famous artist in history?

Edouard Manet (1832-1883)

Such was the fate of the film “Olympia” that shocked the public. They wrote that the heroine of the canvas looks at the viewer with such a challenge and holds it like that left hand, as if there is a wallet in this hand, and the heroine herself does not care what they think about her. The picture was considered too flat, its plot was vulgar, and the heroine was even compared to... a female gorilla. Who would have thought that after one and a half hundred years this painting would become one of the most recognizable in the world!

Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935)

Kazimir Malevich was the founder of Suprematism - and therefore, in some way, the father of everything contemporary art. His textbook work “Black Square” was exhibited in 1915 and became a programmatic piece. But Malevich is not the only one famous for “Black Square”: he worked as a production designer in Meyerhold’s grotesque performances, directed art studio in Vitebsk, where another started working great artist- Marc Chagall.

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)

The public, however, was not delighted with Van Gogh's paintings, and the paintings did not sell. Last years The artist spent his life in Arles in the south of France, where he hoped to create a commune of artists. The plan, alas, remained unfulfilled. The mental disorder progressed, and one day, after a quarrel, Van Gogh attacked a friend who had come to visit with a razor. A friend, artist Paul Gauguin, turned his friend into an insane asylum. There Van Gogh ended his days - he shot himself a year after his imprisonment.

It is noteworthy that during this period perhaps Van Gogh’s most famous works were written - “Wheat Field with Crows”, “ Starlight Night" and others. But real fame came to the artist after his death - in the late 1890s. Now his works are considered among the most expensive in the world.

Edvard Munch (1863-1944)

“The Scream” was written after Munch was walking home along the road one evening and turned around - the red sunset he saw amazed him. The path that Munch returned ran past a slaughterhouse and a hospital for the mentally ill, where the artist’s sister was kept.

Contemporaries wrote that the groans of patients and the screams of killed animals were unbearable. It is believed that “The Scream” became a kind of prophecy for the art of the 20th century, permeated with motifs of loneliness, despair and existential nightmare.

Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516)

To understand that this is a Bosch painting, you don’t need to be an art critic. For example, in the most famous work Bosch - triptych "Garden" earthly pleasures"- contains many details: it depicts the seven deadly sins, reproduced several times, talks in great detail about the hellish torments that await sinners (on the right side), and on the left side it shows the fall of Adam and Eve. Bizarre figures, a large number small parts and the specific imagination of the artist leave no doubt about who the author of the painting is.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987)

Andy Warhol created dozens of works and was one of the main cultural leaders of the sixties. However, in mass consciousness he will almost certainly remain as the author of canvases with duplicated identical objects - in one case, such an object was a can of canned tomato soup, and in another, the sex symbol of the 50s and the symbol of the sexist era of Hollywood, Marilyn Monroe.

Salvador Dali (1904-1989)

At the same time, Salvador Dali remains one of the main artists of his era. Choosing between two Spaniards in our rating (Dali and Pablo Picasso), the editors of the site still settled on the first - the paintings of Salvador Dali play a much larger role in popular culture; to the average person the names "Persistence of Memory" or "Premonition" civil war"says more than "Guernica" or "The Portrait of Dora Maar."

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564)

The fresco “The Creation of Adam” is one of the most recognizable paintings of all times and peoples. In addition to the very obvious cultural significance, this image also played a role in the popular culture of the 21st century: only Internet jokers put into Adam’s outstretched hand: from a remote control to a Jedi lightsaber.

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519)

It is known that Leonardo worked on paintings for a long time, often put them off “for later” and in general, apparently, treated painting as another type of creativity, not distinguishing it too much from others. Therefore, a relatively small number of his paintings have reached us. One cannot help but recall the textbook “La Gioconda”, as well as “Lady with an Ermine”, “Madonna Litta” - and, of course, the fresco “ last supper"in the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.

It is not surprising that famous artists often attract imitators - both those who want to touch the glory of geniuses and those who want to make money from it. We invite you to read about the most famous painting forgers in history.
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How many women's names will you remember if the conversation turns to... visual arts? If you think about it, the feeling that men have completely filled this niche does not leave you... But there are such ladies, and their stories are truly unusual. This article will focus on the most famous artists in the world: Frida Kahlo, Zinaida Serebryakova, Yayoi Kusama. And the story of 76-year-old Grandma Moses is simply unique!

The article will focus on ten women who conquered the art world with their original paintings, the liveliness of their canvases, their original vision of the world, and their ability to practically bring clay to life in sculpture. There may be few of them, but everyone should know about them. educated person. In this selection, you will most likely discover new names for yourself and will be able to see that the fair sex in art has proven itself no worse than men. Next you will see a list of famous artists.

1. Yayoi Kusama is the world's most famous living artist

We are talking about a Japanese female artist who conquered the world with her works. Wild popularity came to her in 2014. Her work is exhibited at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Smithsonian Institution. What does a Japanese woman like to portray? Her paintings and installations include colorful pumpkins, hanging globes, and polka dot patterns.

Today, an artist’s popularity on a global scale is determined solely by the number of people who buy tickets to exhibitions, according to the British publication The Art Newspaper. In 2014, a retrospective of the 86-year-old artist was visited by two million people in Brazil. The exhibition is called “Endless Obsession.”

The exhibition included installations of incredible size, decorated with mirrors and polka dot patterns. The works of the most famous Japanese artist are exhibited periodically around the world. What’s most interesting is that the author has been voluntarily living in a psychiatric hospital for 10 years. There she works on her unusual exhibits.

The Japanese artist creates in the following genres:

• painting;
• collage;
• sculpture;
• performance;
• installation;
• happening.

Styles she uses in her works:

• art brut;
• pop Art.

She paints, makes incredible collages, creates installations and soft sculptures. One of her works was sold for $5,100,000 and broke all records in the price of works of contemporary art.

2. Frida Kahlo - a temperamental Mexican

In second place in our ranking is Frida - one of the most famous women artists peace. It is difficult to imagine a more dramatic fate than hers. The famous Mexican artist suffered from polio as a child. As a result, one of her legs became shorter than the other. But the girl with a rebellious spirit did not want people to see her as a cripple. She carefully hid her injury. To do this, she wore many pairs of stockings on one leg, as well as special shoes. Frida tried to be no different from her peers: she played football, made friends, fell in love.

In her youth, fate again hits Frida painfully. She gets into an accident. The bus she is traveling on collides with a tram. It is literally being pieced together. For a year she lies in bed almost motionless. To somehow pass the time, Frida begins to draw. She paints in the genre of painting and engraving. Styles in which the artist works:

• realism;
• surrealism;
• symbolism.

Since she sees almost no one except herself in the mirror, which is attached to the ceiling, during this period she creates exclusively self-portraits. In total, she will write 60 of them in her life. They are all very bright.

"Broken Column"

The girl stood up, which, according to the doctors, was something incredible. From them she learns that now she will have to wear a support corset for the rest of her life. This fact is reflected in her painting “Broken Column”, which was painted in 1944.

Day terrible tragedy, which ruined her whole life, she captured on a canvas painted in 1929. It's called "Bus Stop". Among the people waiting for the ill-fated bus is the still unsuspecting Kahlo herself.

Making the dream of great love come true

Frida's concrete will has done its job, and the 22-year-old girl returns to normal life. She decides that she needs to study and enrolls in National Institute. There she meets her future husband - a venerable artist, loving, fat and clumsy, but incredibly charismatic Diego Rivero. Frida falls head over heels in love. And he is not indifferent to the talented artist.

Difficult marriage

A little later they got married. Their family happiness It’s hard to call it cloudless. Frida suffers all her life because of her inferiority and her husband’s betrayals. She depicts his lies in the film “Without Hope” (1945). This painting illustrates the Mexican proverb “Funnel feeding.” In Russian, its analogue is the phrase “To hang noodles on one’s ears.”

Loss of a child

Very complex work famous female artist “Henry Ford Hospital” (1932). The canvas depicts Frida herself, who has just lost her baby. There are five sad symbols around her:

1. A fractured pelvis that caused a miscarriage.
2. Lost baby.
3. A snail symbolizing time passing for a long time in a hospital room.
4. A mechanical device that embodies the cruelty and coldness of medical procedures.
5. An orchid is a flower that shows that sexuality and the desire to become a mother are still alive in her.

In one article it is very difficult to describe the entire life path and work of this wonderful woman with incredible sexual magnetism and strong will. Celebrity came to Frida during her lifetime.

She painted 145 canvases in oils. Her very first exhibition, organized by her future husband, brought her popularity. She sold almost all of her paintings at the New York gallery. We know that Frida, despite all her injuries, became a style icon. She liked to be bright and shocking. She never blindly followed trends, but, on the contrary, led the fashion world with her.

Style icon

Frida wore bright bouffant skirts, with the help of which she tried to hide her shortcomings and emphasize her sexuality and temperament. This idea first came to her husband, who believed that Mexican women were special women. And they must emphasize their identity national costume, and not adopt trends from American women. The first time Frida wore a Mexican costume was for her wedding to Diego.

The last picture and death

Frida Kahlo died at 47 years old. She died a week after her exhibition. She was brought to her in a hospital bed. That day she joked a lot and drank wine.

The last painting of the Mexican woman was the painting “Circle”. A year before her death, her leg was amputated. She drank heavily and her work lost detail. The canvas is very scary emotionally. It reflects all the pain of Frida, who understands that her body is being destroyed and death will soon come. There are no details in the picture: flowers, plants. Only a collapsing female figure that dissolves in chaotic brushstrokes.

Frida Kahlo is rightfully included in the list of famous artists of the world. She left behind: paintings, outfits, diaries. These things became exhibits in the house-museum of the same name in Mexico City. This was their shared home with Diego. Today anyone can visit this place.

3. Sofonisba Anguissola

The famous portrait artist who worked in the second half of the 16th and early XVII century. Most of all in her creative heritage self-portraits.

A girl was born into a noble family. Her father dreamed that all his children would develop Creative skills. Besides her, there were 4 more daughters in the family. Thanks to dad, Anguissola gets beautiful art education since he hires for his children the best teachers. Among them are Bernardo Campi and Michelangelo himself.

Anguissola was best at portraying people. She painted her relatives in a natural manner doing their favorite activities. The author's portrait likeness was almost photographic.

Her paintings are kept in the city art gallery Southampton in the UK.

List of the best works:

• “Portrait of a young woman in profile”;
• "Self-portrait";
• "Portrait of Bianca Ponzone";
• "Elizabeth of Valois";
• "Phillip 2".

4. Maria Bashkirtseva

The greatest achievement of this famous artist from Russia is that for the first time in the history of world art, her works entered the Louvre as paintings created by a lady. They can still be seen there to this day.

Maria lived and worked in mid-19th century century. Her life was short, but bright and full of events and creativity. The girl graduated from the Academy of Painting, but she gained most of her knowledge through self-education. Even during her lifetime, people were interested in her works, they were exhibited, and a lot was written about them in the press. Unfortunately, today practically no originals of her works have survived. They were destroyed during the Second World War. The most significant painting in the world by the artist is called “Diary”.

5. Angelica Kaufman

Angelica Kaufman is one of the most educated ladies of the Age of Enlightenment. Her father was also an artist, but great success I didn’t succeed in this field. The Kaufman family traveled a lot and moved to live from place to place. At the age of 9, the girl was already fluent in pencil drawing and oil painting.

Since childhood, she dreamed of popularity. And she succeeded. She was the only lady to be enrolled as a member of St. Luke's Academy. And after a short time in French. The most fruitful in terms of creativity were the years that she lived in the capital of Great Britain. Angelica worked in the neoclassical style. In the Hermitage you can enjoy the following paintings of hers:

• "Mad Maria";
• "Childhood of the Virgin Mary";
• "The Monk of Calais"
• "Self-portrait";
• “Portrait of Countess A. S. Protasova with her nieces.”

6. Marie Tussaud

The artist's surname is well known to many. All thanks to the Museum wax figures, which quickly gained and does not lose its popularity. Marie's father was also a sculptor. It was he who gave her the inheritance famous museum, in which the artist worked. She later passed this business on to her children and grandchildren.

The museum is located in London (Marylebone area). It was founded 200 years ago. Has 19 branches around the world.

7. Camille Claudel

A famous female artist and a very talented and persistent woman. An eighteen-year-old girl independently decided to conquer the capital of France and achieved success. Camilla studied sculpture and graphics. She created in the style of impressionism.

List of the most outstanding works Camille Claudel:

• "Talent and Inspiration";
• "Bronze Waltz";
• "Prayer";
• "Maturity".

Some of the artist’s works were signed by her teacher and lover Rodin Auguste with his name. These are the sculptures:

• "Kiss";
• "Eternal Idol" and many others.

The work, which the poet Grigory Markovsky called “Medea of ​​the Art Nouveau era,” can be seen in the Orsay Museum in Paris.

8. Frances Macdonald

Frances became famous for becoming, together with her talented sister, the founder of the Art Deco style. Her Art Nouveau paintings are known all over the world and are truly unique. Famous paintings:

• "Dream";
• "Mother of Roses";
• "Ophelia".

Unfortunately, Frances's husband burned most of her paintings after her death.

9. The incredible popularity of Grandma Moses: “At 76 years old, life is just beginning...”

So said the famous American artist Anna Moses. Can fame come at such a respectable age, when you only recently simply embroidered, and then timidly and hesitantly, at the age of 70, began to make the first strokes with a brush? It turns out yes!

Her name was Grandma Moses. Not many people have heard about this far from young self-taught artist, who began to paint paintings rather out of the presence of large quantity free time.

Anna Moses is wonderful man, from whom it is worth learning to live! She spoke of the years she lived as if it were a picture that she painted stroke by stroke long years. But the canvas is not finished yet! Even when it seemed that everything was already done, you can add such finishing touches that the whole world will simply gasp! So she did. But everything is in order. Next, we’ll talk about the path to art of one of the world’s most famous female artists.

A few words about the artist

When Mrs. Moses began creating, she was a farmer's widow and mother of 10 children. Unfortunately, 5 of them passed away while still very young. Anna Mary Moses - that's what it sounds like full name masters of painting.

She was born in September 1860. Her parents were farmers who lived in New York State. Neither now nor then did anything here suggest cultural development. The outskirts of the area where the family lived could hardly be called a completely civilized place. However, Mary didn't care much about this. In this sense, it reminds us that real talent will break through everywhere, like a strong sprout that breaks through the thickness of the asphalt, wanting to develop and enjoy the gentle rays of the sun.

Anna's family lived poorly. The girl's education ended when she was taught to read and write. Her mother and father could not give her more. Already at the age of 12 she had to hire a servant for rich neighbors. And from that moment all her thoughts were about how to earn money so as not to die of hunger.

Marriage

She got married, by the standards of that time, incredibly late - at the age of 27! At that time in history, girls of such a “venerable” age were already considered practically old maids. Such ladies had very little hope of finding a decent groom. Anna's husband became a hard worker and a poor man like her. The guy was a simple farm laborer and barely made ends meet. But the young people sincerely loved each other and overcame all difficulties, holding hands tightly.

For eighteen years they saved up to buy a small farm in their homeland. In 1905, the dream of the Moses couple came true. They started their own business. Anna was already 45 years old at that time. For thirty-three years she worked for strangers from dawn to dusk, and then hard work awaited her on her own estate. About the fact that someday she will start writing wonderful paintings, there was no thought.

In 1927, Moses turned 67 years old. She became a grandmother. The woman buried her husband that same year. Manage them family business became the eldest son. Anna had some free time, and she devoted it to embroidery. She was devoted to this activity for about 9 years.

At 76 years old, she decided to try her hand at painting. Perhaps she would have continued to use only a needle, but she was terribly tormented by such a disease as arthritis. Her daughter advised her to pick up a brush, knowing that her mother loved to draw since childhood, but did not have the opportunity. Grandma Moses gave away her first works to children, relatives, and friends.

The subjects of her paintings captivated me with their cuteness and naivety. These were beautiful estates, well-groomed wonderful farms, scenes from the life of ordinary peasants. They looked more like pictures that children draw. The style in which the craftswoman worked is called primitivism. However, there was liveliness and dynamics in these works. The famous woman artist was especially good at paintings that depicted landscapes. In winter, children played snowballs; in summer, they swam in rivers and played tag.

Paintings

Mrs. Moses exhibited her work at local fairs, and her delicious jams, which have received more praise and attention so far. Her most striking works:

• "Winter";
• "Checkered House";
• "Home for Christmas";
• "Let me help";
• "Halloween"

Unexpected popularity

Fame came to Anna unexpectedly and unexpectedly, at the age of 78 years. The paintings of Grandma Moses were accidentally seen by a famous collector who was passing by a shop in the window of which her paintings in the primitivism style were displayed. He immediately asked who the author of the paintings was. The owner replied that there is one unusual grandmother here who gives away her works to everyone.

The man went to Moses' house, it was unlocked, and the woman was playing in the backyard with her grandchildren and feeding the chickens. The collector, whose name was Louis Kaldor, asked to see all of her paintings. He offered her to buy all 14 of her works for a lot of money. Anna did not immediately understand what exactly he wanted to buy: her house or work. Before leaving, he said that he would make Moses a celebrity. Grandma thought he had problems with his head...

At that time, it became fashionable in the USA " folk art" Moses fell into this stream. Then Louis Kaldor began to promote the works of Grandmother Moses to all exhibitions available to him in New York. At first there was little interest in the paintings. However, stubbornness is the path to victory!

Exhibitions

In October 1940, the collector opened an exhibition of paintings by Anna Moses at the modern Galerie St. New York. Etienne. The woman was 80 years old at that time. She personally thanked everyone present. Then fame fell on the elderly lady. She was ordered dozens of paintings. Her works began to be printed on postcards, wrappers, posters, dishes, and fabrics.

The woman artist lived to be 101 years old and enjoyed plenty of fame. At the end of her life, she became truly happy, because she had something she loved, which she was passionate about, and her works were sold very expensively. Famous talent American artist recognized all over the world. Her naive and warm, sincere works are so sweet that you simply dissolve in them, because the paintings were painted by a real grandmother: kind, affectionate, all-forgiving.

It is not for nothing that she is one of the famous female artists of Russia. Her paintings “At Breakfast”, “At the Toilet”, “Whitening the Canvas” and many others after her death will be sold for fabulous sums. The artist herself did not live a rich life. In this article we will tell you a few interesting facts from her life.

1. IN early years Zinaida fell in love with her cousin. Naturally, the family began to oppose this marriage. The young people decided to run away.
2. Most of The artist’s works are dedicated to the work of peasants in the fields. To be able to paint from life, she got up and came to the field, where she set up an easel and laid out her brushes.
3. Due to the extreme poverty in which she spent most of her life, Zinaida had to make her own paints.
4. Leaving, as it seemed to her, for a while to France and leaving her children in Russia, she could not even think that she would see them only 36 years later.
5. Serebryakova never returned to Russia. Her grave is in France.

Exhibitions of Serebryakova’s paintings are often held in New York and Chicago.

We looked into why this happened and whether there is a tendency to change this order of things. Meanwhile, female artists worthy of having both their work and themselves remembered as clearly as male artists are not as few as it seems at first glance. Let us first recall the most famous women who left their mark on art, oh life path and whose work would be useful for anyone to know.

text: Katya Savchenko

Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi is a symbol of a woman’s struggle for the right to be an artist in Italy XVII century - became the first woman admitted to Europe's oldest Academy fine arts in Florence. Gentileschi's most recognizable work, Judith Beheading Holofernes, depicts the act of reprisal of a chaste virgin against a male enemy. For Artemisia, who survived an act of violence at a young age, this work became not only an homage famous painting Caravaggio, but also a way to cope with his childhood trauma. Several books have been written about the life of Artemisia Gentileschi, and in 1997, French director Agnès Merle made a feature film based on her biography.

Marie Elizabeth
Louise Vigee-Lebrun

The French portrait painter Marie Elisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun (or Madame Lebrun) was so popular among her contemporaries that from the age of 15 she could support herself with the money received from orders and support her widowed mother and younger brother. The artist always depicted her clients in winning poses and elegant outfits, thanks to which (in addition to her talent as a painter) she was loved among the French aristocracy. In 1779, Madame Lebrun painted one of the first portraits of the young Marie Antoinette. She later became one of the queen's closest artists and created a total of about 30 portraits of her. Forced to leave France during the revolution, Marie Lebrun traveled widely and spent six years in Russia, where she met Empress Catherine II. However, the artist did not have time to paint her portrait - the empress died before the commission began.

Angelika Kaufman
and Mary Moser

Artists Angelika Kaufman and Mary Moser were among the founders of the British Royal Academy of Arts and over the next century and a half remained the only women to receive membership in it. Angelika Kaufman was able to achieve mastery in one of the most traditionally “masculine” artistic genres - historical painting- and became a recognized master of classicism. Mary Moser, a Swiss-born artist, was one of the most famous women in the British art scene XVIII century. The artist gained fame primarily thanks to her images of bouquets and floral ornaments, orders for which she received, among other things, from the British royal family.

Berthe Morisot

The great-niece of Jean-Honoré Fragonard and a student of Camille Corot, Berthe Morisot became the first woman in the circle of French impressionists, which she joined thanks to her friendship with Edouard Manet. From 1864, she regularly exhibited her work at the prestigious Paris Salon, until in 1874 she decided to join the first Impressionist exhibition. Berthe Morisot not only provided her works for the exhibition, but also, together with Monet, Renoir, Sisley and other members of the circle, took part in the selection of participants. From that moment on, the artist missed participation in the collective exhibition of the Impressionists only once, when she was expecting a child.

Natalia Goncharova

The contribution of the “Amazon of the Russian avant-garde” Natalia Goncharova to the history of art is assessed on a par with the work of one of the “fathers of the avant-garde” and her husband Mikhail Larionov. In her work, the artist experimented with a variety of genres - from impressionism to cubo-futurism - thanks to which she developed her own expressive pictorial language. Natalya Goncharova left behind a huge legacy - about 400 works were presented at her retrospective exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery. Goncharova is considered one of the most popular Russian artists on the art market: her “Spanish Woman” is one of the ten most expensive Russian paintings ever sold at auction.

Vera Mukhina

While designing the USSR pavilion for the 1937 Paris World Exhibition, the pavilion's architect Boris Iofan came up with the idea of ​​creating a monument depicting a young worker and peasant woman. The sculpture was supposed to be the personification of the ideals of the new Soviet state, in which power belonged to the proletariat. The competition to create the monument was won by sculptor Vera Mukhina, who, according to Iofan, “picked up the idea.” Thus was born one of the main unofficial symbols USSR - monument “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”. The success of the Soviet pavilion, crowned with an almost 25-meter sculpture of young proletarians, ensured Mukhina fame in the Soviet Union and beyond, Stalin Prize first degree, and later - the title folk artist USSR and membership in the USSR Academy of Arts. In addition to sculpture, Vera Mukhina was engaged in clothing design and worked a lot with glass - the artist is often credited with being the author of the design of a faceted glass.

Frida Kahlo

Recognizable pictorial style, vivid biography and memorable appearance made Frida Kahlo one of the most popular artists. Frida’s talent was discovered thanks to two events, which the artist herself later called “the main catastrophes of her life.” The first disaster was a car accident, which confined Frida to bed for many months and forced her to pick up a brush and paints out of boredom. The second is marriage to one of the main Mexican artists and political activist Diego Rivera - a constant source of experiences that Frida poured out onto canvas. Most of the artist’s works are self-portraits, in which not only the extraordinary art style, echoing surrealism and naive art, but also the pain of numerous operations, difficult relationship with her husband and the temperament of a Mexican woman.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O'Keeffe's husband, photographer and gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz, called her the first woman of American modernism and said that O'Keeffe's images of flowers, animal bones and desert landscapes are an integral part of the mythology and iconography of American artistic culture. Throughout her creative career, Georgia O'Keeffe remained faithful to these three stories and unified style, which united the traditions of European abstract painting and the aesthetics of pictorial photographers, one of whom was Alfred Stieglitz. Despite the neutral content of the works, some critics saw hidden sexual overtones in O’Keeffe’s works - in some paintings depicted close-up fragments of flowers reminded them of something more than pistils and petals. O’Keeffe, however, always denied such an interpretation of her works.

Louise Bourgeois

Fame did not come to Louise Bourgeois immediately. Although the artist was friends with Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko, she managed to achieve a level of fame comparable to them only in old age. In the early 1970s, the works of 60-year-old Louise Bourgeois became popular in the wake of interest in the then emerging feminist art movement. Louise Bourgeois has always advocated for women's rights in the art scene. She said: “An artist will never be allowed to work in peace if she does not prove her right to exist in the world of art over and over again.” Already in 1981, a retrospective exhibition of the artist took place at MoMA. In the last 20 years of her life, Louise Bourgeois created what became her business card drawings and sculptures of huge spiders. For the artist, the figure of the spider was both the embodiment of childhood fears and a reminder of her mother, her best friend and protector.

Marina Abramovich

Marina Abramovic is considered one of the main figures in performance art today. She is also ranked fifth on the list of the 100 most influential people in art Review in 2014, and in terms of the number of mentions in the press, including gossip columns, it can compete with Hollywood stars. In her work, Marina Abramovic also strives for maximum results, testing the capabilities of her body and psyche to the limit. For example, one of her most famous performances could have ended in death for Abramovich: the artist laid out 72 different subjects and invited viewers to take any of them and use them at their discretion on the artist’s body. Among the items, in addition to roses and a feather boa, was a loaded pistol.

Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman is known primarily for staged photographs, in which she acts as both a photographer, a model, a costume designer, and a makeup artist. Cindy Sherman's characters are actresses, tired women from high society, clowns - hide dramatic stories and complex inner world. Cindy Sherman became famous at a fairly young age; her fame was brought to her by the series of photographs “Stills from Untitled Films,” in which the artist played the roles of fictional film characters. Today works from this series are sold at auctions for millions of dollars.

Tracey Emin

If not in terms of prices, then in terms of the number of scandals accompanying her career, Tracey Emin may well compete with Damien Hirst, with whom she shares the title of chief representative of the Young British Artists group. The artist’s iconic work is an unmade bed with trash scattered around, looking at which you can roughly imagine the hostess’s lifestyle. In addition to a wave of criticism from the conservative public, My Bed brought Tracey Emin the Turner Prize in 1999 and the patronage of the famous Young British Artists patron, collector Charles Saatchi, who purchased the work for £150,000. 15 years later, “My Bed” was sold at auction at Christie’s for more than £2,500,000, provoking another wave of debate around the artist’s work.

Photos: Getty Images/Fotobank (1), 6 via Wikiart, Shutterstock, 2 Tate, Wikipedia