Faith Middleton Show: The New Britain Museum Of American Art

WomenArtists@NewBritainMuseum
Dec. 18, 2010 – Mar. 20, 2011

A landmark, large-scale exhibition of art by women at The New Britain Museum of American Art.

For hundreds of years women could not become artists because they were excluded from the art schools. In particular, they could not study the nude figure. And they were confined to subjects that were very gentile in nature. Like portraits and mothers and children.

In the 20th century, for the first time women were allowed into the academies where they painted the human form, and works of art by women were accepted for the first time. It was not until the Second World War that women really began to enter the workforce and thousands of females were admitted to art schools across the country.

Today there are more women than men studying the visual arts in colleges and universities across the country. And for the first time women are on an equal footing with men in the art market. This revolution has taken place in just a few generations and now we can celebrate this triumph of women artists.

The show consists of 80 works of art, drawn from the Museum’s 600 works by women artists, and they chart 200 years of progress. The exhibition will be up through March 20th.