Women Artists: Four Centuries of Creativity / Opening Reception

Join us the night after Halloween – Saturday, November 1st, from 6-8 pm – to celebrate the opening of Women Artists: Four Centuries of Creativity by dressing as your favorite woman artist or work of art.

• Hors d’oeuvres by Chef's Table Catering
• Cash Bar
• Museum members receive one complimentary beverage.
Become a member today https://plainsart.org/for-individuals-households/

Free admission, registration requested.

Women Artists: Four Centuries of Creativity

This exhibition represents four centuries of art created by remarkable women who struggled against gender bias to take their places in history. Until the twentieth century, women were frequently denied formal training and often had difficulty showing and selling their work. Artwork created by women was automatically deemed inferior, and stereotypes traditionally associated women with crafts, such as textiles or decorative arts, rather than what was deemed to be “fine art.” Even women who possessed undeniable talents were said to have overcome the limitations of their gender in order to succeed in a man’s field. It was not until the equal rights and feminist movements of the 1960s that women were finally free to study, teach, and explore art throughout the United States and Europe.

The works in this exhibit come from two collections. Thirty-seven pieces on loan from the Reading Public Museum represent four centuries of work on paper—including etchings, engravings, lithographs, drawings, watercolors, woodblock prints, and photographs—by some of the most important women artists. These works chronicle the emergence of women as professionals in the field of art and record the extraordinary creative contributions made over the centuries.

The curatorial team at Plains Art Museum selected forty-one pieces from the museum’s permanent collection to display along loaned works. This decision was motivated by a recent assessment revealing that only 10.5% of the museum’s collection is by women artists. Of the forty-one works chosen, twenty-two are by nationally and internationally acclaimed artists and nineteen by celebrated regional artists.

Students from Minnesota State University Moorhead’s Women and Art course, taught by Dr. Noni Brynjolson, contributed twenty-two extended texts for artworks from the Plains Art Museum’s collection. Together, these texts form one of the only art historical overviews focused on some of the most prominent women artists of this region.