Exposition – Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400-1800

Introducing new artistic heroines, Making Her Mark brings together more than 230 objects from royal portraits to metal work, ceramics, textiles, and cabinetry, to demonstrate the many ways women contributed to the visual arts of Europe.

Featuring the work of well-known artists Sofonisba Anguissola, Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Leyster, Luisa Roldán, Rosalba Carriera, Rachel Ruysch, and Elisabeth Vigée-LeBrun alongside female artisanal collectives, talented amateurs, and women working in factory settings and workshops, the exhibition invites us to reconsider what we think we know about European art history.

Co-curated byDr. Alexa Greist,AGO Curator and R. Fraser Elliott Chair, Prints & Drawings and Dr. Andaleeb Banta, BMA Senior Curator and Department Head, Prints, Drawings & Photographs, the decision to exclusively display objects made by women makes this exhibition unique, and among the first to put women makers of various levels of society in conversation with each other, across centuries and a continent, through their artworks.