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
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  • The Mirror and the Palette: Rebellion, Revolution and Resilience: 500 Years of Women’s Self-Portraits

    Jennifer Higgie

    Weidenfeld & Nicolson, pp. 328, £20

  • Women in the Picture: Women, Art and the Power of Looking

    Catherine McCormack

    Icon, pp. 231, £12

‘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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