Marianne Werefkin and the Women Artists in Her Circle traces the relationships between the modernist artists in Werefkin’s circle, including Erma Bossi, Elisabeth Epstein, Natalia Goncharova, Elizaveta Kruglikova, Else Lasker-Schüler, Marta Liepiņa-Skulme, Elena Luksch-Makowsky, and Maria Marc. The book demonstrates that their interactions were dominated not primarily by national ties, but rather by their artistic ideas, intellectual convictions, and gender roles; it offers an analysis of the various artistic scenes, the places of exchange, and the artists’ sources of inspiration. Specifically focusing on issues of cosmopolitan culture, transcultural dialogue, gender roles, and the building of new artistic networks, the collection of essays re-evaluates the contributions of these artists to the development of modern art. Contributors: Shulamith Behr, Marina Dmitrieva, Simone Ewald, Bernd Fäthke, Olga Furman, Petra Lanfermann, Tanja Malycheva, Galina Mardilovich, Antonia Napp, Carla Pellegrini Rocca, Dorothy Price, Hildegard Reinhardt, Kornelia Röder, Kimberly A. Smith, Laima Laučkaitė-Surgailienė, Baiba Vanaga, and Isabel Wünsche

This collection, for the first time, explores women’s self-conceptions and representations of women’s and gender roles in society in their own Expressionist works. How did women approach themes commonly considered to be characteristic of the Expressionist movement, and did they address other themes or aesthetics and styles not currently represented in the canon? Women in German Expressionism centers its analysis on gender, together with difference, ethnicity, intersectionality, and identity, to approach artworks and texts in more nuanced ways, engaging solidly established theoretical and sociohistorical approaches that enhance and update our understanding of the material under investigation. It moves beyond the masculine, “New Man,” viewpoint so firmly associated with German Expressionism and examines alternative, critical, and divergent interpretations of the changing world at the time. This collection seeks to broaden the theorization, scholarship, and reception of German Expressionism by—much belatedly—including works by women, and by shifting or redefining firmly established concepts and topics carrying only the imprint of male authors and artists to this day.

A beautifully illustrated examination of the women artists whose inspired search for artistic integrity and equality influenced Expressionist avant-garde culture Women Artists in Expressionism explores how women negotiated the competitive world of modern art during the late Wilhelmine and early Weimar periods in Germany. Their stories challenge predominantly male-oriented narratives of Expressionism and shed light on the divergent artistic responses of women to the dramatic events of the early twentieth century. Shulamith Behr shows how the posthumous critical reception of Paula Modersohn-Becker cast her as a prime agent of the feminization of the movement, and how Käthe Kollwitz used printmaking as a vehicle for technical innovation and sociopolitical commentary. She looks at the dynamic relationship between Marianne Werefkin and Gabriele Münter, whose different paths in life led them to the Blaue Reiter, a group of Expressionist artists that included Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. Behr examines Nell Walden’s role as an influential art dealer, collector, and artist, who promoted women Expressionists during the First World War, and discusses how Dutch artist Jacoba van Heemskerck’s spiritual abstraction earned her the status of an honorary German Expressionist. She demonstrates how figures such as Rosa Schapire and Johanna Ey contributed to the development of the movement as spectators, critics, and collectors of male avant-gardism. Richly illustrated, Women Artists in Expressionism is a women-centered history that reveals the importance of emancipative ideals to the shaping of modernity and the avant-garde.

This book includes some 200 complete entries from the award-winning Dictionary of Women Artists, as well as a selection of introductory essays from the main volume.

A chronological introduction to women artists throughout history, this book provides a rich understanding of key female artists from the Baroque to the present day. In 1971, in an essay that has now become one of the touchstones of feminist art history, Linda Nochlin raised the question heard round the world: “Why have there been no great women artists?” Since the 1970s, as a result of this kind of consciousness-raising, the feminist discourse around art has expanded, addressing forms of activism, the idea of a feminist aesthetic, the female body, sexuality, and representation more largely. The reframing of female contributions to the history of art is still ongoing, and this new addition to the Art Essentials series draws attention to some of its key dimensions. Focusing on fifty diverse women artists from Artemisia Gentileschi through Judy Chicago, Ana Mendieta, and the Guerrilla Girls to Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, and Mona Hatoum, this book equips readers with an understanding of feminist art, as well as an appreciation of its most important figures. This latest addition to the Art Essentials series documents women artists in context to offer readers a rich understanding of key female artists from the Baroque to the present day.

This book presents new research on the histories and legacies of the German Expressionist group Blaue Reiter, the founding force behind modernist abstraction. For the first time Blaue Reiter is subjected to a variety of novel inter-disciplinary perspectives, ranging from a philosophical enquiry into its language and visual perception to analyses of its gender dynamics, its reception at different historical junctures throughout the twentieth century and its legacies for post-colonial aesthetic practices. The volume offers a new perspective on familiar aspects of Expressionism and abstraction, taking seriously the inheritance of modernism for the twenty-first century in ways that will help to recalibrate the field of Expressionist studies for future scholarship. Blaue Reiter still matters, the contributors argue, because the legacies of abstraction are still being debated by artists, writers, philosophers and cultural theorists today.

Graphic artist, illustrator, painter, and cartoonist Rahel Szalit (1888–1942) was among the best-known Jewish women artists in Weimar Berlin. But after she was arrested by the French police and then murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz, she was all but lost to history, and most of her paintings have been destroyed or gone missing. Drawing on a range of primary and secondary sources, this biography recovers Szalit’s life and presents a stunning collection of her art. Szalit was a sought-after artist. Highly regarded by art historians and critics of her day, she made a name for herself with soulful, sometimes humorous illustrations of Jewish and world literature by Sholem Aleichem, Heinrich Heine, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, and others. She published her work in the mainstream German and Jewish press, and she ran in artists’ and queer circles in Weimar Berlin and in 1930s Paris. Szalit’s fascinating life demonstrates how women artists gained access to Jewish and avant-garde movements by experimenting with different media and genres. This engaging and deeply moving biography explores the life, work, and cultural contexts of an exceptional Jewish woman artist. Complementing studies such as Michael Brenner’s The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany, this book brings Rahel Szalit into the larger conversation about Jewish artists, Expressionism, and modern art.