Old Mistresses : Women, Art and Ideology

How was it possible, by the later twentieth century, to have erased women as artists from art history so comprehensively that the idea of 'the artist' was exclusively masculine? Why was this erasure more radical in the twentieth century than ever before? Why is everything that compromises greatness in art coded as 'feminine'? Has the feminist critique of Art History history yet effected real change? With a new Preface by Griselda Pollock, this new edition of a truly groundbreaking book offers a radical challenge to a women-free Art History. Parker and Pollock's critique of Art History's sexism leads to expanded, inclusive readings of the art of the past. They demonstrate how the changing historical social realities of gender relations and women artists' translation of gendered conditions into their works provide keys to novel understandings of why we might study the art of the past. They go further to show how such knowledge enables us to understand art by contemporary artists who are women and can contribute to the changing self-perception and creative work of artists today.