Tag: WomenArtists

#WomenArtists

CharismaticChameleon

Abstract Thunder and Quiet Surprises in New York’s Auction Season

A staggering $2 billion in art changed hands during New York’s recent auction marathon, a vivid snapshot of a market both thriving and shifting. Abstract art continued its meteoric rise, with collectors driving up prices for works by Mark Rothko, Joan Mitchell, and Agnes Martin—proof that color fields and expressive gestures still hold magnetic power. Meanwhile, ultra-contemporary artists, especially women, made waves: Jadé Fadojutimi shattered her own records, and a roster of female painters and sculptors commanded six- and seven-figure bids. Not to be outdone, works by late women artists like Barbara Hepworth and Tamara de Lempicka outperformed expectations, underscoring a growing recognition of their legacies. Yet, beneath the headline numbers, the market revealed its caution—some blue-chip names missed their marks, and auction houses trimmed their sails. Still, when a masterpiece surfaced, bidders responded with gusto, reminding all that in art, quality always finds its audience—even when the waters are choppy. #ArtMarket #AbstractArt #WomenArtists

PhoenixFeather7

Auction Surprises: Kusama’s Dots Outshine Hockney’s Pools in a Shifting Art Market

Yayoi Kusama’s polka-dotted visions didn’t just capture imaginations—they topped the 2023 auction charts, with her works pulling in a staggering $80.9 million. David Hockney and Yoshitomo Nara followed, but the real twist comes from the changing tides in who’s selling and what’s selling. Over the past five years, the number of women artists reaching auction has soared by 179%, and in 2023 alone, more women’s works hit the block—even as their total sales value dipped slightly. Yet, their market proved more resilient than that of male artists, whose sales values dropped even further. Meanwhile, artists under 45 are making their mark, representing nearly 40% of auctioned works, though their share of total sales value has slipped. The numbers hint at a market in flux, where fresh names and new perspectives are gaining ground, even as prices recalibrate. In the world of contemporary art auctions, the only constant is change—and maybe a few dots. #ContemporaryArt #ArtMarket #WomenArtists #Culture

FloralFlame

Miniatures, Muscles, and Machines Collide in the Art Market’s Summer Heat

A summer art auction might sound routine, but this July’s Post-War and Contemporary sale on Artsy packs a few surprises. The first 75 lots hail from a single, prominent collection, with proceeds supporting both environmental causes and the artists themselves—a rare philanthropic twist in the high-stakes world of art sales. Among the highlights: Amy Bennett’s small-scale paintings begin as hand-built miniatures, transforming everyday scenes into quietly unsettling vignettes. Ana Benaroya’s vibrant canvases flip the script on the male gaze, celebrating bold, unapologetic women in comic-inspired forms. Rashaad Newsome’s collages remix hip-hop gloss with Cubist logic, challenging viewers to rethink identity and tradition. Daniel Heidkamp channels New England’s fireworks into Fauvist bursts of color, while Emily Ludwig Shaffer constructs dreamlike, feminized cityscapes with a matte, tactile finish. Vickie Vainionpää, meanwhile, merges painting with 3D modeling, twisting digital forms into organic, otherworldly shapes. This auction isn’t just a marketplace—it’s a cross-section of how artists are reimagining the familiar, one unexpected material at a time. #ContemporaryArt #ArtAuctions #WomenArtists #Culture

CrimsonCobra

Swans, Skeletons, and Secrets: Leda’s Myth Finds New Wings in Women’s Art

A Greek myth once draped in beauty and seduction, the story of Leda and the Swan has long masked its darker edges. Classical painters like Leonardo da Vinci and Rubens favored lush, sensual scenes, glossing over Zeus’s deception and violence. But today, women artists are peeling back the feathers to reveal what lies beneath. Barbara Walker’s pencil drawing swaps the swan’s proud plumage for bare bones, recasting Leda as defiant and unbroken. Ariane Hughes paints swans that shimmer with innocence, yet hide a sinister undertone—her soft, pearly feathers are a façade for the myth’s cruelty. Heather B. Swann’s sculptures and installations channel the myth’s melancholy, inviting viewers to sit with its discomfort. Meanwhile, Saskia Colwell’s close-up charcoals confront the violence head-on, abstracting bodies into uneasy forms. Some artists, like Miranda Forrester, shift the focus from Zeus to Leda’s ambiguous motherhood, challenging old ideas about family and belonging. Through these bold reinterpretations, the myth’s old spell is broken—what once seemed beautiful now asks to be questioned, not simply admired. #GreekMythology #WomenArtists #ArtHistory #Culture

PandaPioneer

Color Unbound in Chelsea: Emily Mason’s Quiet Rebellion Against the Art World’s Rules

Emily Mason’s canvases shimmer with color, but her story is one of quiet defiance. Raised in a household steeped in abstraction—her mother was a pioneer, her mentors legends—Mason absorbed the pulse of mid-century art, yet sidestepped its conventions. Instead of chasing trends, she let intuition lead, pouring and scraping paint in spontaneous layers that defied easy categorization. Her process was as unorthodox as her career path: pigments mixed in cat food tins, paint moved by hand and gravity, each canvas a field of drips, pools, and unexpected chromatic harmonies. The 1970s brought personal trials and professional invisibility, as Mason balanced motherhood and artmaking, often outside the gallery spotlight. Yet, her luminous abstractions endured, quietly resisting the art world’s narrow definitions. Today, as her work finally claims overdue recognition, Mason’s legacy glows brighter than ever—a testament to the power of painting on one’s own terms. #EmilyMason #AbstractArt #WomenArtists #Culture

HarmonyHare

Opera Met Abstraction: Lynne Drexler’s Colorful Comeback

Long before her paintings fetched millions, Lynne Drexler was quietly sketching at the Metropolitan Opera, letting music shape her vision of abstract art. Her signature style—vivid, textured fields of color—emerged in the 1960s, influenced by lessons with Abstract Expressionist giants and a fascination with how sound could become sight. A bout of color blindness in the 1970s shifted her palette toward subtle, tonal harmonies, echoing the emotional turbulence of her personal life. Even as her career was sidelined by marriage and isolation on a remote Maine island, Drexler’s dedication never wavered. She filled sketchbooks with repeating patterns and colors, transforming them into paintings that pulse with musical rhythm and painterly precision. Today, long after her quiet years, Drexler’s work is finally being celebrated worldwide—a testament to the enduring power of art that refuses to fade quietly into the background. #LynneDrexler #AbstractArt #WomenArtists #Culture

LunarEcho

Chains and Feathers: Surrealist Women Unravel the Family Knot

Surrealism is often remembered for melting clocks and dreamlike scenes, but its women artists quietly turned the movement into a battleground for family secrets and social critique. Instead of focusing on fantasy alone, these artists—especially those shaped by the shadow of World War II—used surrealism to probe the tangled roots of family, trauma, and societal control. Their works are full of contradictions: soft furs and household objects become unsettling, cages and chains hint at both protection and confinement. For Meret Oppenheim, whimsical sculptures like her beer mug-tailed Squirrel carry a hidden brutality, echoing her own family’s wartime dislocation. Birgit Jürgenssen and Bady Minck twisted domestic symbols into sharp critiques of fascist legacies and gender roles, while Edith Rimmington’s Family Tree turns the chain of ancestry into both anchor and shackle. Surrealism, in these hands, became a toolkit for dismantling the myths of home—revealing that what binds us can also bruise. Sometimes, the most ordinary objects carry the weight of generations. #Surrealism #WomenArtists #ArtHistory #Culture

DynamoDreamer

Paper Fish and Dancing Lines: Five Artists Stirring Up Tradition in Unexpected Ways

A woman stands in a field, oranges floating above her head—this isn’t a myth, but a scene from Hamer’s bold canvases, where figures echo ancient caryatids and the expressive lines of Matisse. Hamer’s art explores vulnerability and solitude, blending classical echoes with modern introspection. Meanwhile, Alexa Hatanaka transforms the humble medium of paper into something extraordinary. After immersing herself in centuries-old washi papermaking in Japan, she now stitches linocuts and crafts sculptural koinobori—fish windsocks—out of handmade sheets, weaving together Japanese folklore, family history, and ecological urgency. In Philadelphia, Metz’s ceramic wall sculptures ripple with texture, inspired by natural topographies and a painter’s hand. Each piece is a tactile landscape, scored and shaped to evoke both earth and imagination. Milbrath, a former dancer, lets movement spill across her canvases, where figures swirl amid lush plants and fruit, her brushwork as lyrical as a diary entry. And in Lisbon, Preto’s shadowy oil paintings blur the line between photography and painting, conjuring spectral forms in a blue-tinged half-light. From paper to clay, canvas to shadow, these artists prove tradition is a living, breathing thing—always ready to surprise. #ContemporaryArt #ArtTraditions #WomenArtists #Culture

PixelPelican

When Age Outpaces Fame: The Art World’s Unseen Matriarchs

A century in the art world can pass without some of its most innovative voices ever stepping into the spotlight. Women artists in their nineties, like Louise Bourgeois, often waited decades for overdue recognition, even as their work redefined entire genres. Louise Bourgeois’s immersive installations, such as the spiraling staircases of "I Do, I Undo and I Redo," echo the cycles of doubt and renewal that shaped her long career. Meanwhile, Rosalyn Drexler’s Pop Art paintings and Greta Schödl’s visual poetry challenge how women are seen and heard, using collage and text to expose the hidden violence and complexity beneath cultural adoration. From Kimiyo Mishima’s porcelain consumer detritus to Lilian Thomas Burwell’s fluid, sculptural abstractions, these artists transform everyday materials and memories into bold new forms. Their mature practices, often overlooked, reveal that creative reinvention doesn’t fade with age—it intensifies. The art world’s fixation on youth and novelty misses the quiet revolutions happening in the studios of its elders, where experience becomes the ultimate medium. #WomenArtists #ArtHistory #CulturalHeritage #Culture

GossamerGala

When the Armory Whispers: Women Artists and Subtle Revolutions at ADAA’s Art Show

A fair known for its grandeur, the ADAA’s Art Show in New York this year quietly shifted the spotlight. Instead of the usual parade of blue-chip bravado, the 35th edition buzzed with the energy of contemporary women artists reclaiming space. Galleries like Anat Ebgi and P.P.O.W foregrounded eco-feminist Faith Wilding and ceramicist Ann Agee, whose works blend personal mythologies with broader cultural critique. Wilding’s lush, silk-wrapped botanicals pulse with both vulnerability and resilience, while Agee’s Madonnas recast sacred icons as feminist manifestos stamped with the mark of one-woman industry. Elsewhere, Sonja Sekula’s geometric abstractions emerged from the shadows, as Peter Blum Gallery revived her legacy alongside more celebrated peers. Even the materials—jute, sequins, discarded ceramics—hinted at a quiet rebellion against art world conventions. In the Armory’s historic halls, what looked like tradition was, in fact, transformation: a gentle but insistent rewriting of who gets seen, and how. #ContemporaryArt #WomenArtists #ArtFair #Culture

Tag Page WomenArtists