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Women with a Brush: Inspirational Female Painters
March 8th is International Women’s Day and we wanted to celebrate by highlighting some of the female painters we find inspirational. We chose women who led movements, influenced politics, and most of all opened the way for later generations to create beautiful art. From the classics to the modern, we hope to provide something to inspire everyone.
Justyna Kopania is from Warsaw, Poland and when she paints she tries to show the world that surrounds us, from another perspective. This is sometimes through the eyes of the child, sometimes music, or someone who looks out the window or out into the street. Perhaps the world that surrounds us really is quite different than we perceive it every day. She gives us that new, fresh outlook.
Mary Cassatt was an American painter who was an important member of the Impressionist movement. She was friends with many other famous artists of that movement, including Edgar Degas. Although born in America, Cassatt spent a great deal of her career in Paris and became well known for her use of soft pastel colors. She had many works shown in the Paris Salon and the Impressionist Exhibitions, bringing recognition to women as artists during that time.
Marianne North is considered one of the most dedicated and famous botanical artists of all time. She worked as an itinerant artist and biologist, traveling around the globe and capturing truly exotic scenes. The stunning detail she produced in her work contributed greatly to the worlds of art and science, allowing us to see just what she saw in her extensive and exciting travels.
Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter who created many famous works that reflected her country’s unique culture. Her paintings include portraits and landscapes that show how unique natively inspired art could be. She was also deeply involved in political movements during her lifetime and worked to bring recognition to Mexico as a country.
Georgia O’Keeffe
Georgia O’Keeffe was an American Painter, considered by some to be the “Mother of American Modernism.” Although she received formal training for an number of prestigious art schools, her personal style was developed while exploring on her own. She became most well known for her abstract paintings of flowers and landscapes.
Helena Wierzbicki, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, studied with the Argentine masters Luis Barragan and Elio Eros Vitali. An Expressionist at heart, her love of art developed over the years and she couldn’t imagine doing anything else. For her, making art is an innate response to the inner and outer worlds. It is a balancing act between the intuitive and the planned.
Elaine de Kooning
Elaine de Kooning was a painter in the post-World War II era that helped lead the Abstract Expressionist and Figurative Expressionist movements. She was an accomplished landscape and portrait artist, but because of the way women were marginalized in the Expressionist movement she often chose to sign her initials instead of her name on her artwork. In additional to her own pieces of art, Elaine also wrote about and taught extensively about a variety of art topics. Her work is considered integral in the development of Expressionism in the world of art.
About the Author Amanda Durham
Amanda studied Fine Arts as a Stone Scholar at Butler Community College and Integrated Marketing Communications with emphasis in Advertising and minored in Graphic Design.
