AAWAA Bibliography

Women Artists

• Historical
  
  • Broad Historical Overviews/Collections
  • 1800-1900's
  • Surrealism
  • Avant Garde
  • Beat Generation
• California women artists
  
• Collections/Anthologies of artists/writers
  
• Biographies/Autobiographies/Interviews
  
• Gender/Feminism and Art
  
• Performing Artists/Performance Art
  
• Specific Artists
  
  • Pacita Abad
    
  • Faith Ringold
    
  • Hisako Hibi
    Mary Cassatt
    
  • Mine Okubo
    

Women Artists : Works from the National Museum of Women in the Arts by Nancy Heller. Hardcover - 240 pages (November 2000) Rizzoli. " Women Artists is the definitive volume on the history of women in art. Spanning over 500 years, from the Renaissance through the present, this beautifully designed volume features portraits, biographical backgrounds, and discussions of the work of eighty-six artists, exploring their art within the historical context in which it was created."

The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art by Guerrilla Girls. Paperback - 96 pages (February 1998) Penguin USA (Paper). "Taking you back through the ages, the Guerrilla Girls demonstrate how males (particularly white males) have dominated the art scene, and discouraged, belittled, or obscured women's involvement. Their skeptical and hilarious interpretations of "popular" theory are augmented by the newest research and the expertise of prominent feminist art historians. "Believe-it-or-not" quotations from some of the "experts" are sprinkled throughout, as are the Guerrilla Girls' signature masterpieces: reproductions of famous art works, slightly "altered" for historic accuracy and vindication. This colorful reinterpretation of classic and modern art, as outrageous as it is visually arresting, is a much-needed corrective to traditional art history, and an unabashed celebration of female artists. "

Women Artists : An Illustrated History by Nancy G. Heller, Nancy Grubb (Editor). Paperback - 280 pages 3rd Illus edition (August 1997) Abbeville Press. "With its lavish color illustrations--the paintings and sculptures are all reproduced in full color--and numerous documentary pictures of the artists themselves, Women Artists: An Illustrated History provides an unprecedented wealth of visual material on the subject. This updated third edition adds several new international artists--including MonaHatoum, Kiki Smith, Carrie May Weems, and Rachel Whiteread--to bring the content up to the minute."

Women, Art, and Society by Whitney Chadwick. Paperback - 448 pages 2nd Rev edition (February 1997) Thames & Hudson. "The place of women in the history of Western art--as the producers of major paintings, sculptures, and craft items, and as the subjects of the work of others--remains controversial. In this extensively revised edition of her brilliant study, Chadwick re-frames and re-presents the issues relating to the conditions under which women have worked as artists from the Middle Ages to the present. 275 illustrations, 55 in color. "

Women Artists by Margaret Barlow. Hardcover - 320 pages (November 1999) Levin Associates. Spanning six centuries and hundreds of women, Women Artists presents a wealth of information on the subject, with more than 300 reproductions of works by extraordinary female artists, from pre-Renaissance times to the present.

1800-1900's

Anonymous Was a Woman/a Celebration in Words and Images of Traditional American Art-And the Women Who Made It : A Celebration in Words and Images by Mirra Bank, Phyllis Rose (Photographer). Paperback Reprint edition (September 1995) St. Martin's Press. "Based on her acclaimed PBS film of the same name, Anonymous Was a Woman is a glorious collection of American folk art, created by "ordinary" women o f the 18th and 19th centuries, which celebrates the daily experiences and inner lives of women. 97 illustrations, 60 in color. "

Women Artists, 1550-1950 by Ann Sutherland Harris and Linda Nochlin. 1976. Los Angeles County Museum of Art ; distributed by Random House.

Surrealism

Mirror Images : Women, Surrealism, and Self-Representation by Whitney Chadwick (Ed), Dawn Ades (Ed). From the synopsis on the Amazon site "The self-images of Claude Cahun, Dorothea Tanning, Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, Meret Oppenheim, Remedios Varo, Kay Sage, and others both internalize and challenge conventions for representing femininity, the female body, and female subjectivity...This book, which accompanies an exhibition organized by the MIT List Visual Arts Center, explores specific aspects of the relationship between historic and contemporary work in the context of Surrealism." Paperback, 258 pgs, MIT Press (Trd). May 1998. .

Avant Garde

Amazons of the Avant Garde : Alexandra Exter, Natalia Goncharova, Liubov Popova, Olga Rozanova, Varvara Stepanova, Nadezhda Udaltsova< by John E. Bowlt (Editor), Matthew Drutt (Editor), Deutsche Guggenheim berlin, Alexandra Exter, Liubov' Sergeevna Popova. Hardcover - 352 pages (June 2000). This volume (and exhibition) is the first time many of these early 20th century Russian Avant Garde women artists' work have appeared in the west. The rich essays provide context to their work.

Beat Generation

Women of the Beat Generation: The Writers, Artists and Muses at the Heart of a Revolution by Brenda Knight (Editor), Ann Charters (Afterword). Hardcover - 384 pages (October 1996) Conari Pr. Also in paperback (256 pages -- November 1998 ) and abridged audiocassette (October 1996. Audio Literature. 2 cassettes.). Profiles "40 women of the Beat generation and publishing samples of their work. Well-known poets Diane di Prima and Denise Levertov appear in the volume, along with the muses of male writers and other women who never became famous at all. As Brenda Knight notes in her introduction, counterculture women in the 1950s and 1960s faced difficult obstacles: "To be unmarried, a poet, an artist, to bear biracial children, to go on the road was doubly shocking for a woman, and social condemnation was high." The first portion of the anthology is devoted to women who were not Beats but who set the stage for the movement. ...In the "Muses" section are short biographies of wives and girlfriends of famous male writers ...Profiles of writers such as Joyce Johnson, Hettie Jones, Janna McClure, and Janine Pommy Vega account for the rest of the anthology. The lives these women led are as interesting as their writing, .... --Jill Marquis"

A Different Beat : Writings by Women of the Beat Generation by Richard Peabody (Editor), Joyce Johnson, Carolyn Cassady. Paperback - 275 pages (August 1997) Consortium Book Sales & Dist. This anthology gathers the Beat-period writings of 26 women who were often overshadowed by their male contemporaries, but whose art both shaped the Beat aesthetic and laid the cornerstone for the outlaw female artists of today. Among the featured writers are Jan Kerouac, Joan Haverty Kerouac, Eileen Kaufman, Diane Di Prima, Ruth Weiss, and many others.

California women artists

Art in Residence : West Coast Artists in Their Space Kurt Edward Fishback, Henry Hopkins, Cole Weston (Photographer). Paperback - 144 pages 0 edition (May 13, 2000) Blue Heron Pub. Art in Residence features portraits of eighty influential West Coast artists, including Ansel Adams, Cole Weston, Eleanor Antin, Jock Sturges, Robert Arneson, Judy Chicago, and more.

Art, Women, California, 1950-2000 : Parallels and Intersections by Diana Burgess Fuller (Editor), Daniela Salvioni (Editor) This item will be published in February 2002.

Sunshine Muse : Art on the West Coast, 1945-1970 by Peter Plagens. Paperback - (March 8, 2000) 225 pages. With a new Introduction by the Author This book, full of rare illustrations, surveys and documents the work of West Coast artists from 1945 to the 1970s, with glances back to the art schools and movements of the first half of the century. Twenty-five years after its first publication it is still our most trenchant record of that period in American art history. Writing as an artist and critic who observed firsthand the vital and innovative postwar art scene in California, Plagens has provided an invaluable record of the artists and work created in Los Angeles and San Francisco and, more briefly, in Seattle and the northwest.

Yesterday and Tomorrow : California Women Artists by Sylvia Moore (Editor). Paperback (October 1989) Midmarch Art Press.

California Art Review by Hank Baum.

Diversity & Presence: Women Faculty Artists of the University of California by Melinda Wortz , Katherine Diage , University Of California .

Other visions, other voices : women political artists in greater Los Angeles by Paul Von Blum .

Women in Printing : Northern California, 1857-1890 by Roger Levenson

Art, Women, California, 1950-2000 : Parallels and Intersections by Diana Burgess Fuller (Editor), Daniela Salvioni (Editor) This item will be published in February 2002.

Books on Julia Morgan

• Julia Morgan, Architect by Sara Holmes Boutelle.
• Julia Morgan : Architect by Cary James, Matina S. Horner (Designer).
• Julia Morgan, Architect of Dreams by Ginger. Wadsworth
• Julia Morgan : Pioneer Woman Architect by Glenna Dunning

Daring to Dream : The Life of Hazel Wood Waterman by Sally Bullard Thornton

Collections/Anthologies of artists/writers

Art.Rage.Us : Art and Writing by Women With Breast Cancer Paperback - 176 pages (June 1998) Chronicle Books. Communications Art This powerful book is the result of a collaborative effort by The Breast Cancer Fund: The American Cancer Society, San Francisco Bay Area; and The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, San Francisco Chapter. Together these groups invited artists and writers who had faced breast cancer to submit work for exhibition and publication. Released in October, which was national Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Art.Rage.Us demonstrates a range of emotions experienced by survivors of, and those affected by, breast cancer: dignity, courage, anger, terror, grief, humor and acceptance. They can perhaps best be summed up in a poem by Merijane Block after her second surgery: 'Everything takes longer/than you think it should/or thought it would./Except your life.'

Abstract Expressionist Women Painters : An Annotated Bibliography : Elaine De Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, GraceHartigan, Lee Krasner, Joan mitchell by Francoise S. Puniello, Halina R. Rusak. Hardcover - 372 pages (January 1, 1996) Scarecrow Press.

The Art of Reflection by Marsha Meskimmon. Paperback - 224 pages 0 edition (October 15, 1996) Columbia Univ Press. "With 43 illustrations of works by Louise Bourgeois, Frida Kahlo, Alice Neel, Cindy Sherman, and Jo Spence, among others, The Art of Reflection is the first sustained inquiry into the appropriation of self-portraiture by women painters, photographers, scultptors, and performance artists. "

Women Artists of Color by Phoebe Farris (Editor), Parts of a Puzzle by Moira Roth. Hardcover - 512 pages (May 30, 1999) Greenwood Publishing Group.

Lesbian Art in America : A Contemporary History by Harmony Hammond. Hardcover - 208 pages (August 2000) Rizzoli International Publications. "DAMN FINE ART BY NEW LESBIAN ARTISTS Cherry Smyth "It is no surprise to see a photograph by Catherine Opie on the front of this handsome and groundbreaking volume on lesbian art. Opie is now represented in most of the best public collections in America, and her inclusion, along with the current rise of Nicole Eisenman, suggests that the market for specifically lesbian imagery (as opposed to erotica, which has always had an audience) has finally widened to include the great art institutions that still set the canon for contemporary art. Although the text of Harmony Hammond's wonderfully rich book is a little too dense for casual consumption, the history she offers--especially of the middle decade represented here, the 1980s, with its porn wars and the emergence of both postmodernism and postfeminism alongside a remarkable boom in the art market--can be found nowhere else, and certainly not in so graceful a form, lavishly illustrated and perceptively annotated. --Regina Marler " Watchful Eyes: Native American Women Artists by Theresa Harlan. Phoenix, Arizona: The Heard Museum, 1994. Out of print

Biographies/Autobiographies/Interviews

Come Out the Wilderness : Memoir of a Black Woman Artist by Estella Conwill Majozo. Hardcover - 305 pages 1 Ed edition (February 1999) Feminist Press. also in paperback. An evocative memoir moving from segretaged Louisville, Kentucky of the only girl with five brothers, to a Catholic girl's school, the death of her father when she was a child, her failed marriages, single motherhood, and her supportive family: " particularly a grandmother who lived on in dreams and messages, a mother who gave unwavering support, and brothers who helped compensate for poor choices in husbands. Majozo, who earned the first Ph.D. awarded in African American literature, writes knowingly of coming through a wilderness mined with racial, sexual, and social restrictions and limiting relationships." review by Vanessa Bush

Miriam Schapiro: Shaping the Fragments of Art and Life by Thalia Gouma-Peterson, Miriam Schapiro, Linda Nochlin. Hardcover -- 160 pages (November 1999) Harry N Abrams. A pioneering force in the feminist art movement of the 1970s, Miriam Schapiro (b. 1923) is an internationally renowned artist. This comprehensive work on Schapiro traces her career through her early canvases, her legendary collaborations with other women artists, her feminist-oriented collages, to her tributes to female artists of the past. "Best known for her large heart- and fan-shaped canvases layered with fabric and paint, Schapiro helped launch the Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s and '80s and developed a richly decorative style that has influenced a generation of younger artists." 125 illustrations, 75 in full color, "

Barbara Chase-Riboud: Sculptor by Anthony F. Janson, Peter Howard Selz. Hardcover - 144 pages (October 1999) Harry N Abrams. Barbara Chase-Riboud is a sculptor whose dramatic explorations of literary and historical themes appear in major museums around the world. This richly illustrated book presents the first comprehensive overview of Chase-Riboud's 30-year career as a sculptor and draftsman. "

American Venus : The Extraordinary Life of Audrey Munson, Model and Muse by Diane Rozas, Anita Bourne Gottehrer, Anita Gattehrer. Hardcover - 128 pages (December 1999) Balcony Press. "Audrey Munson was once called "The most perfect, most versatile, most famous of American models, whose face and figure have inspired thousands of modern masterpieces of sculpture and painting." It was not an exaggeration. Audrey's career is the classic tale of meteoric rise and tragic downfall--from "Queen of the Artists' Studios" to fragile psychiatric patient. "

Gender/Feminism and Art

Women, Art, and Power : And Other Essays by Linda Nochlin. Paperback Reprint edition (November 1989) Icon (Harpe). " Women, Art, and Power-seven landmark essays on women artists and women in art history-brings together the work of almost twenty years of scholarship and speculation. "
Also by Linda Nochlin, Representing Women

Gender and Art by Gillian Perry (Editor). Paperback - 272 pages (July 1999) Yale Univ Press. "In this intriguing book, a diverse collection of case studies sheds light on how gender issues affect the study of art history. Encompassing European and American art, architecture, and design from the sixteenth century to the present day, the book examines the role of gender difference in the creation, consumption, and interpretation of works of art."

Feminism and Art History by Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard( Editors). Paperback - 358 pages 1st edition (July 1982) Icon (Harpe). From an amazon reader: "This is essential reading for anyone interested in feminist art history. It was one of the earlier scholarly compliations of critical articles concerning issues in visual representation of women as subject and by women as artists. Ranging from a study of images of women in Greek art, to an analysis of the psycho-social motivations of 20th century Expressionism, to an investigation of American quilting and its influence on contemporary art, each essay contributes to our understanding of paradigms which are basic in forming a new context..."

Differencing the Canon : Feminist Desire and the Writing of Art's Histories by Griselda Pollock. Paperback - 304 pages (April 1999) Routledge. "In this major new book, renowned art historian Griselda Pollock enters the debate at the very center of the culture wars: Should the traditional canon of the Old Masters be rejected, replaced or reformed? And what difference can a feminist approach to art history make? " Also by Polluck:

• Generations and Geographies in the Visual Arts : Feminist Readings. "Generations and Geographies is a unique assembly of artists, curators, critics and researchers considering sexual difference and its significance in the production and reception of visual representation by women artists. "
• Vision and Difference : Femininity, Feminism and the Histories of Art. Discussions of the structures of art historical writing are complemented by studies of Elizabeth Siddall, Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot, which deal with themes of modernity, sexuality and repression. "
• Old Mistresses : Women, Art and Ideology. Paperback (June 1981) Pubs Overstock. Out of print.

Feminism and Contemporary Art : The Revolutionary Power of Women's Laughter by Jo Anna Isaak. Paperback - 247 pages (July 1996) Routledge. "Feminism and Contemporary Art discusses the work of individual women artists within the context of the wider social, physical and political world. Jo Anna Isaak looks at the work of a diverse range of artists from the United States, the former Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and Canada. She discusses the work of such women as Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Nancy Spero, Elaine Reichek, Jeanne Silverthorne, Mary Kelly, Lorna Simpson and the Guerrilla Girls, and examines a range of work by twentieth-century Soviet women artists. Isaak argues that contemporary art under the influence of feminism provides the momentum for a comic critique of key assumptions about art, art history, and the role of the artist. "

The Power of Feminist Art: The American Movement of the 1970s, History and Impact by Norma Broude (Editor), Mary D. Garrard (Editor). Paperback - 320 pages (October 1996) Harry N Abrams. "this landmark volume is the only comprehensive history of American feminist art available. Exhaustively researched, this book is encyclopedic in its documentation of the feminist art movement, which began more than 25 years ago in the United States, and that ultimately transformed the art world. The editors have brought together 18 influential art historians, critics, and artists to explore every aspect of feminist art. There are more than 270 illustrations (118 in full color) that feature the work of women painters, sculptors, photographers, and performance artists, and a fold-out, illustrated timeline presenting a selective chronology of important events in and surrounding the movement, from its earliest roots in the 1940s to the mid-1990s. "

The Pink Glass Swan : Selected Essays on Feminist Art by Lucy R. Lippard. Paperback (March 1995) New Press. Lippard's writings show the impact of feminism on art, and art on feminism chronicling the sweeping changes in women's art over the last thirty years.

Reframings: New American Feminist Photographies. Diane Neumaier, ed. Paperback - 336 pages (August 1998) Temple University Press. While some of the 45 women artists featured are well known (Nan Goldin, Susan Meiselas, Anne Noggle, Cindy Sherman, and Carrie Mac Weems), most will be new to followers of contemporary photography. A common belief among the contributors is that photographic images are inherently political and that too many photographs of women "frame" them as idealized, impersonal, or weak.

Division of Labor: Women's Work in Contemporary Art by Lydia Yee. Univ California Press. New York: The Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1995

Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago's Dinner Party in Feminist Art History, by Amelia Jones (Editor), Laura Cottingham (Editor). Univ California Press. Los Angeles/ Berkeley: UCLA at the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center in association with the University of California Press, 1995. Out of print.

Performing Artists/Performance Art

Angry Women by Andrea Juno and V.Vale ( Editors). Paperback (March 1992) Juno Books. . From an Amazon reader: "This book is amazing! Basically, it's a compilation of interviews of the most important female performing artists from the past couple of decades. Fascinating, stereotype-destroying, and informative."

Performance : Live Art Since 1960 by Roselee Goldberg, Laurie Anderson (Foreword). Hardcover - 240 pages (October 1998) Harry N Abrams. "In this major new book, renowned art historian Griselda Pollock enters the debate at the very center of the culture wars: Should the traditional canon of the Old Masters be rejected, replaced or reformed? And what difference can a feminist approach to art history make? "

The Knowing Body : The Artist As Storyteller in Contemporary Performance by Louise Steinman. Paperback 2nd edition (October 1995) North Atlantic Books.

Out from Under : Texts by Women Performance Artists by Lenora Champagne (Editor). Paperback - 185 pages (October 1990) Theatre Communications Group.

The Explicit Body in Performance by Rebecca Schneider. Paperback - 256 pages (March 1997) Routledge.

Specific Artists

Mary Cassatt : Painter of Modern Women by Griselda Pollock, Mary Cassatt. Paperback - 224 pages (September 1998) Thames & Hudson
Other books on Mary Cassatt:

• Mary Cassatt : A Life by Nancy Mowell Mathews. Paperback - 383 pages Reprint edition (October 1998) Yale Univ Press.
• Mary Cassatt : Modern Woman by Judith A. Barter (Editor), George T. M. Shackelford, Erica E. Hirshler, Mary Cassatt (Editor), Hardcover - 320 pages (October 1998) Art Institute of Chicago Museum.

Dancing at the Louvre: Faith Ringgold's French Collection and other Story Quilts, by Faith Ringgold (Editor), New Museum of Contemporary Art, Dan Cameron (Editor), Richard J. Powell (Introduction). New York/ Berkeley: New Museum of Contemporary Art and University of California Press. Paperback - 168 pages (May 1998). Also in hardcover - 168 pages (May 1998)
Other books about Faith Ringold

• Art on Fire : The Politics of Race & Sex in the Paintings of Faith Ringgold by Lisa E. Farrington, Faith Ringgold. Paperback (February 1998) Millennium Fine Arts Pub Inc.
• We Flew over the Bridge : The Memoirs of Faith Ringgold by Faith Ringgold. Little Brown & Company. Out of Print.
• Spirits of the Cloth : Contemporary African American Quilts by Carolyn Mazloomi, Faith Ringgold (Preface), Cuesta Ray Benberry. Hardcover - 192 pages 1 Ed edition (November 1998) Clarkson Potter.

• Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad in the Sky by Faith Ringgold (Illustrator), J. Davis (Editor). Reading level: Ages 4-8. Paperback 1st dragon edition (December 1995) Crown Pub.
• My Dream of Martin Luther King by Faith Ringgold (Illustrator). Reading level: Ages 4-8. Paperback - 32 pages Reprint edition (December 1998) Dragonfly.
• If a Bus Could Talk : The Story of Rosa Parks by Faith Ringgold. Reading level: Ages 4-8. School & Library Binding - 32 pages (November 1999) Simon & Schuster .
• Dinner at Aunt Connie's House by Faith Ringgold (Illustrator). Reading level: Ages 4-8. Paperback (September 1996) Hyperion Press.
• The Invisible Princess by Faith Ringgold (Illustrator). Reading level: Ages 4-8. Hardcover - 32 pages 1 Ed edition (December 1998) Random House.
• Talking to Faith Ringgold by Faith Ringgold, Linda Freeman (Contributor), Nancy Roucher (Contributor). Reading level: Ages 4-8. Paperback (December 1995) Crown Pub.
• Talking to Faith Ringgold by Faith Ringgold. Reading level: Ages 4-8. Paperback 1st dragon edition (December 1996) Dragonfly.
• Bonjour, Lonnie by Faith Ringgold (Illustrator), Elizabeth Gordon (Editor). Reading level: Ages 9-12 Library Binding - 1 pages 1 Ed edition (September 1996) Hyperion Press.

This page grows organically from recommendations. If we don't have a book that you feel should be listed or if you notice that a book is now out-of-print, please let us know. aawaa2000@yahoo.com