Female artists in the Renaissance
Female artists in the Renaissance Dr. Deanna MacDonald in Smarthistory , June 1, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/female-artists-renaissance/ . Recovering forgotten “masters” When Renaissance painter Plautilla Nelli got her first solo exhibit at Florence’s Uffizi Gallery in 2017, some art historians asked . . . Plautilla who?? Despite being a celebrated artist in sixteenth-century Florence, Nelli had been forgotten by art history to the point that even scholars of Renaissance art knew nothing of her. How was this possible? In a word, gender. Nelli’s obscurity was the cumulative effect of historical gender imbalances that limited women in the Renaissance and modern art worlds. While the past cannot be changed, gender balance in contemporary scholarship and curatorial practice is bringing women Renaissance artists to light. The Renaissance glass ceiling: then and now As the Guerrilla Girls have highlighted, th...
