Introducing Feminist Art History

This e-book brings together the series of landmark introductory essays and prefaces written by Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard for their three influential anthologies on feminism and art history (1982–2005), their introduction to The Power of Feminist Art, the first book on the American Feminist Art movement (1994), and the catalogue essay for Claiming Space, their co-curated exhibition of feminist art at American University (2007). Collectively, these introductory essays articulate many of the major and still relevant questions that have concerned feminist art historians and critics over the past quarter century, and they define shifts of thinking and theoretical controversies that developed in the field as a whole over those years. Gathered in this new format, with a new preface entitled “Introducing the Introductions,” these essays will provide scholars, teachers, and a younger generation of readers and students with an accessible overview of the historical evolution of feminist thinking about art and art history during its formative period.

Broude and Garrard are professors emeritae of art history at American University in Washington D.C. Through their individual and collective scholarship, they have helped to define and shape the field of feminist art history. Their co-edited volumes of feminist essays have long served as basic texts in art history and women’s studies courses in the United States and around the world.