First Published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This work examines the art of 33 Latina American artists and the manner in which these artists have merged Latino and Norte Americano cultures in their work. Juana Alicia, Leonora Arye, Santa Barraza, Pura Cruz, Linda Vallejo, Theresa Rosado, Joyce de Guatemala, and 26 other Latina American artists are included. Their works are composed in a variety of media and styles. A critical discussion of the work of each artist is supplemented by photographs (some in color) of many works and a compilation of exhibitions in which they have participated.

Numerous American women artists built successful professional careers in the mid-twentieth century while confronting challenging cultural transitions: shifts in stylistic avant-gardism, harsh political transformations, and changing gender expectations for both women and men. These social and political upheavals provoked complex intellectual and aesthetic tensions. Critical discourses about style and expressive value were also renegotiated, while still privileging masculinist concepts of aesthetic authenticity. In these contexts, women artists developed their careers by adopting innovative approaches to contemporary subjects, techniques, and media. However, while a few women working during these decades have gained significant recognition, many others are still consigned to historical obscurity. The essays in this volume take varied approaches to revising this historical silence. Two focus on evidence of gender biases in several exhibitions and contemporary critical writings; the rest discuss individual artists' complex relationships to mainstream developments, with attention to gender and political biases, cultural innovations, and the influence of racial/ethnic diversity. Several also explore new interpretative directions to open alternative possibilities for evaluating women's aesthetic and formal choices. Through its complex, nuanced approach to issues of gender and female agency, this volume offers valuable and exciting new scholarship in twentieth-century American art history and feminist studies.

Profiles more than 150 women artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from the American West, offers fifteen interpretive essays, and includes nearly three hundred reproductions of their works.

Presents biographical profiles of American women of achievement in the field of visual arts, including birth and death dates, major accomplishments, and historical influence.