This beautifully illustrated reference work is the only source of information on American women sculptors as a group. Virginia Watson-Jones presents the accomplishments of more than 350 contemporary American women sculptors through photographs of their major works and detailed information about their lives and careers. For each artist information is provided on her birthplace and birth year, education, preferred media, major exhibitions, location of work in public collections, awards, selected private collectors, professional interests other than sculpture, teaching position (if applicable), and mailing address. Each entry also includes a statement by the sculptor and her signature.

This one-of-a-kind compendium serves as a reminder of women's strength in the contemporary art market place, and acts as testament to the innovation, power, and necessity of women's art and its influence. Featuring a select group of living women artists and architects who have made significant and groundbreaking contributions to contemporary art, the volume profiles an international cross-section of women artists--from emerging to established--who address critical, social, environmental, psychological, historical, and social issues through their art. Included are works by five MacArthur Foundation Fellows. Ultimately, this book promotes women artists in an ongoing dialogue through the exploration of their work and process, while offering fresh perspectives on feminism and notions of cultural power. Readers receive a unique glimpse of seminal works such as Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party, as well as brand new pieces inspired by The Women's March on Washington in 2017. Complete with a foreword by Elizabeth Sackler, PhD, this compilation is ideal for educators, students, curators, collectors, and all those who support the arts.

"In 1875 Anne Whitney traveled to Florence, Italy, to select the marble for a statue of Samuel Adams commissioned for the U.S. Capitol. That summer, in a small village outside Paris, she noticed a woman who worked as a model for the local sculptors. Not the typical artists model, the woman was quite old and would often drowse while sitting for them, her kerchiefed head fallen forward in sleep. Later, when Whitney returned to America, she brought with her not only the completed statue for her respectable commission but the far less conventional Le Modèle, a deeply human image of the old woman. Created at a time when such subjects as the old and the poor were rarely given attention, Whitney's sculpture is highly innovative for its day. Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein's American Women Sculptors: A History of Women Working in Three Dimensions chronicles the lives and works of hundreds of women such as Anne Whitney, telling of their public successes, their private sensibilities and visions, their unique contributions to their chosen art form as women and as individuals. Rich in anecdote and analysis, the book brings to life their personal stories and the times they lived in to create an intimate yet wide-reaching portrait. It is the first comprehensive survey of the American woman's generous contribution to the sculpted form. From small garden bronzes and portrait busts to large-scale equestrian monuments and war memorials, the works of American women sculptors stand in parks, plazas, and public buildings across the country. Often struggling to overcome the persistent obstacle of sexism - and for women of color, racism - these women took part in every significant art movement of their time: they were neoclassicists who worked in marble in Rome, modernists who brought cubism and abstract sculpture to the United States, leaders among the artists of the Harlem Renaissance, and abstract expressionists, minimalists, and installation artists. Yet despite this continuous history of achievement, their stories have gone largely untold, their contributions often unrecognized. As Rubenstein writes in her introduction, "How many of the thousands who pass Bethesda Fountain in Central Park know that it was created by a woman?" Rubenstein takes as her starting point in this history the expressive masks, basketry, and ceramics of pre-Colonial Native American women rarely included in traditional art surveys. Following are Patience Wright, considered by many to be America's first professional sculptor; the women sculptors of the Gilded Age, whose creativity flourished under the influence of the suffrage movement; the women who worked for the Federal Art Project during the Depression, among the founding members of the Sculptor's Guild, and such important abstract sculptors as Louise Nevelson and Louise Bourgeois. The author concludes with the contributions of such young contemporary sculptors as Maya Lin, whose Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall has become one of the country's landmarks. Both major and lesser-known artists are included, and the more conventional definitions of sculpture expanded to consider artists working in a variety of three-dimensional forms. Rubinstein discusses the works of weavers, potters, furniture carvers, and even performance artists, acknowledging the enormous influence women have had in these endeavors. Throughout the book Rubinstein illuminates the works themselves and the artists' techniques with detailed description and commentary, while the text is complemented by more than 300 illustrations. American Women Sculptors will be valued for the author's meticulous research and enjoyed for her appreciation of storytelling. It celebrates a rich, lively history." --

A conservatory, one of the few in the country devoted to preserving African American artworks.

Thousands of women pursued artistic careers in the United States during the late nineteenth century. According to census figures, the number of women among the ranks of professional artists rose from 10 percent to nearly 50 percent between 1870 and 1890.