Laura Freeman Laura Freeman

Why should art have ever been considered a male preserve?

Two new books reveal that many great women painters continued to be excluded from art history well into the 20th century

‘London Breakfast’ by Nora Heysen (1935). Credit: Bridgeman Images 
issue 01 May 2021

‘I’m a lady,’ insists the improbable damozel in David Walliams’s Little Britain sketch. I’m a lady, I kept thinking, reading these two books. More: I’m a lady art historian. Oughtn’t I to like books by other lady art historians about lady artists and ladies in art. Why don’t I? Why so out of sync with the sisterhood?

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