Modern Women Artists and Gender in Art History

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the lectures on Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Pān Yùliáng, Surrealism, Frida Kahlo, Louise Bourgeois, Abstract Expressionist women, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Evelyne Axell, Sylvia Sleigh, Suzanne Valadon, Tamara de Lempicka, Georgia O'Keeffe, and racial representation in modern art.

Nancy Elizabeth Prophet

An African American and Native American sculptor (1890–1960) who graduated from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1918 and moved to Paris in 1922 with $380, where she studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and sculpted in wood and stone.

Silence (ca. 1924)

A marble bust sculpted by Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, accepted at the Salon d'Automne of 1924, reflecting months of solitary life in her Paris apartment without hearing another voice for days.

Prayer (or Poverty) (1926)

A full-figure standing stone sculpture by Nancy Elizabeth Prophet carved during severe material hardship in Paris, inscribed with the words "Poverty" and "Prayer."

Negro Head (ca. 1926–1927)

A wooden sculpture by Nancy Elizabeth Prophet representing her stylistic shift to traditional African wood-carving techniques, emphasized facial features, and clarified emotional expression following an African sculpture exhibition in Paris.

Congolais (1931)

A wooden head sculpted by Nancy Elizabeth Prophet depicting a male subject, chosen in part to navigate and avoid the perceived "explosive nature" and controversy surrounding depictions of Black women in Western art during the era.

Timid Conventionalism

A phrase coined by philosopher Alain Locke in 1925 to describe the conservative academic stylistic restrictions imposed on African American artists to avoid being dismissed as unskilled when attempting modernist experimentation.

Discontent (1929)

An award-winning carved wood head by Nancy Elizabeth Prophet for which her racial identity was withheld from sponsors, reflecting her chronic struggle with poverty and lack of career recognition before disappearing from public record.

Pān Yùliáng

A pioneering Chinese modernist painter and sculptor (1895–1977) who rose from orphanhood and brothel enslavement to study in Lyon, Paris, and Rome, known for blending Western oil techniques and Impressionism with Chinese brushwork.

The "Three No's"

The marginalized living conditions characterizing Pān Yùliáng’s expatriate life in France after 1937 to avoid political persecution in China: having no commercial gallery representation, no partner or family, and no French citizenship.

Ode to Spring

An early figurative composition by Pān Yùliáng exhibiting Impressionist brushwork and light that depicts nude male and female figures dancing in an outdoor circle.

Girl with a Fan (1942)

A Western-style portrait by Pān Yùliáng demonstrating thick impasto, textured layering, vivid color palettes, and modern European dress while depicting a seated female subject.

Nude by the Window (1946)

A painting by Pān Yùliáng featuring a reclining female nude engaged with a specific male presence, utilizing elevated spatial perspectives inspired by Japanese prints and intricate patterned textiles rather than an objectifying male gaze.

Girl with a Fan (1942)

Depicts Pan Yuliang’s shift into Western Art Styles, while maintaining her Chinese heritage

Nude Sitting in Red Bathrobe (1955)

A late work by Pān Yùliáng featuring a seated female nude draped in a red robe against a calligraphic ink-like background, demonstrating the deliberate fusion of traditional Chinese aesthetics with European easel painting.

Mental Iceberg

Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic model dividing human consciousness into three levels—the conscious, preconscious, and the deep, repressed unconscious—which formed the theoretical basis of Surrealist art.

Self-Portrait (Inn of the Dawn Horse) (1938)

A key Surrealist painting by Leonora Carrington depicting herself in riding clothes seated in an interior beside a hyena, with a rocking horse suspended above and a white horse galloping free through the window.

Mexicanidad

The artistic and political revival of indigenous Mexican national identity, folkloric dress, and pre-Columbian heritage, prominently embodied in the post-1929 self-portraits and lifestyle of Frida Kahlo.

Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress (1926)

An early classical portrait by Frida Kahlo painted in an aristocratic, academic European and Italian Renaissance manner following her catastrophic 1925 trolley accident.

Self-Portrait (1929)

A transitional self-portrait by Frida Kahlo showcasing flatter geometric planes, direct eye contact, traditional Mexican jewelry, and modern imagery (an airplane and clock), asserting her cultural roots and modern identity.

Frida and Diego Rivera (1931)

A double wedding portrait by Frida Kahlo referencing Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait, presenting Rivera holding a palette as the dominant maestro while Kahlo positions herself beside him in traditional Mexican dress, holding his hand lightly to signify an open marriage.

Henry Ford Hospital (1932)

An oil on metal retablo-style painting by Frida Kahlo depicting her traumatic miscarriage in Detroit, surrounded by six floating symbolic objects connected by blood-red strings to her naked, bleeding body.

Frida and the Miscarriage (1932)

A detailed lithograph by Frida Kahlo dividing her body into split halves (cellular division and weeping), illustrating an unborn fetus, menstrual and reproductive loss, and blood nourishing the soil and plant roots.

Memory (the Heart) (1937)

A surrealist self-portrait by Frida Kahlo completed after discovering Diego Rivera's affair with her sister Cristina, featuring Kahlo armless with cropped hair, a golden rod impaling her hollow chest, an oversized bleeding heart on the ground, and one foot depicted as a sailboat.

The Broken Column (1944)

A vulnerable self-portrait by Frida Kahlo in which her fractured spinal column is visualized as a ruined Ionic column, her flesh is nailed all over like Saint Sebastian, and her torso is locked within an orthopedic medical corset.

The Mask (1945)

A painting by Frida Kahlo depicting a weeping, purple-haired theatrical mask held to her face, exploring the masquerade of expected femininity, repressed suffering, and societal decorum in Mexico.

The Embrace of Love of the Universe (1949)

A mythological painting by Frida Kahlo showing the cosmic Universe and the Aztec Earth Mother cradling Kahlo, who in turn cradles a baby-like Diego Rivera holding a third eye, illustrating maternal sacrifice and balance.

Femme Maison (1946–47)

A body of paintings and drawings by Louise Bourgeois in which the upper torsos and heads of nude female figures are replaced by architectural domestic buildings, addressing the conflict between maternal domesticity and confinement as both a sanctuary and a prison.

Femme Volage (Fickle Woman) (1951)

A totemic wooden sculpture on a metal rod by Louise Bourgeois functioning as a symbolic self-portrait of an immigrant artist, wife, and mother struggling to achieve balance in post-war New York.

Fillette (Little girl) (1968–99)

A hanging phallic sculpture made of latex and plaster by Louise Bourgeois, merging male sexual organs with female bodily contours to emphasize the vulnerability and delicacy of masculine attributes.

The Destruction of the Father (1974)

A claustrophobic installation of soft latex and plaster forms by Louise Bourgeois representing a dining table and bed where children symbolically dismember and consume their tyrannical, philandering patriarch.

Cell (Choisy) (1990–93)

An architectural cage sculpture by Louise Bourgeois encasing a pink marble replica of her French childhood home positioned under a menacing metal guillotine blade.

Red Room (Parents) (1994)

An enclosed cell installation by Louise Bourgeois featuring twin mirrors, a red bed, and sculpted objects addressing the psychological "primal scene" of parental sexual intimacy viewed through themes of jealousy, passion, and guilt.

Maman (1999)

A monumental 30-foot outdoor bronze and steel spider sculpture by Louise Bourgeois created as an ode to her mother, honoring her maternal nurturing, intelligence, patience, and protective nature as a tapestry restorer.

Second-Generation Labeling

A critical dismissive practice highlighted by art historian Joan Marter in which accomplished female Abstract Expressionists were routinely categorized as mere "followers" or "disciples" of male peers rather than original innovators.

Polyphonic (1945)

A rhythmic, dynamic Abstract Expressionist oil painting by Perle Fine that translates musical counterpoint and structural syncopation into linear abstract forms.

Willem de Kooning (1952)

An expressive, gestural portrait by Elaine de Kooning depicting her husband seated in a chair, demonstrating structural mastery of human anatomy within an Abstract Expressionist painterly framework.

Giftwares (1955)

A dense oil painting by Grace Hartigan that bridges the domestic realm of commercial storefront displays with energetic, large-scale Abstract Expressionist mark-making.

Western Dream (1957)

A breakthrough stain painting by Helen Frankenthaler created by soaking raw cotton canvas with thinned, turpentine-diluted oil paints to evoke the organic colors and expanses of the American West.

Composition (1956)

A large autobiographical therapeutic painting by Niki de Saint-Phalle depicting church spires, figures, and personal trauma created during her recovery from a severe nervous breakdown and psychiatric electroshock treatment.

Saint Sebastian or Portrait of My Lover (1961)

An assemblage artwork by Niki de Saint-Phalle featuring a dartboard target above a man's nailed dress shirt and tie, converting murderous romantic anger and frustration into interactive art.

Tir (Shooting Paintings) (1961)

A series of aggressive interactive performances initiated by Niki de Saint-Phalle where the artist and spectators discharged rifles at plaster reliefs concealing paint sacs, releasing spurts of vibrant color.

Death of the Patriarch (1962)

A politically charged assemblage by Niki de Saint-Phalle featuring toy airplanes, tanks, and figures plastered over a male torso, directing righteous rage toward her abusive father and societal militaristic patriarchy.

Crucifixion (1965)

A suspended, armless sculpture by Niki de Saint-Phalle encrusted with plastic doll heads and synthetic flowers, exposing the figure's pubic area from an elevated wall position to deconstruct feminine helplessness.

Hon (She) (1965–66)

A painted polyester sculpture by Niki de Saint-Phalle celebrating female vitality, joyful movement, fertility, and archetypal power, created in deliberate alignment with the American Civil Rights Movement.

Hon (She) (1966)

Niki de Saint-Phalle - celebrates Black women and their femininity. Displays a shift in Saint-Phalle’s career toward celebrating femininity rather than criticizing how women are treated.

Valentine (1966)

A Pop art mixed-media collage by Evelyne Axell celebrating Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, affirming that modern women can participate in revolutionary scientific careers without forfeiting sensuality.

Tableau à Caresser (Painting to be Caressed) (1970)

An interactive Pop art piece by Evelyne Axell combining smooth painted Clartex plastic with plush artificial fur along the perimeter to explore tactile pleasure while withholding the actual female body from physical contact.

The Pretty Month of May (1970)

A triptych by Evelyne Axell dedicated to the May 1968 student uprisings in Paris, juxtaposing critic Pierre Restany, a psychedelic reconfiguration of Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, and a nude female self-portrait.

Philip Golub Reclining (1971)

A realist painting by Sylvia Sleigh that parodies Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus by depicting a naked, recumbent young man while painting her own clothed reflection at the easel to invert the historic male gaze.

The Turkish Bath (1973)

A feminist painting by Sylvia Sleigh that subverts J.A.D. Ingres's 1862 orientalist bath scene by portraying identifiable male art critics and her husband, Lawrence Alloway, nude, vulnerable, and relaxed in a domestic setting.

Paul Rosano Reclining (1974)

A detailed figurative portrait by Sylvia Sleigh showing her favorite muse unclothed on an air mattress, retaining natural male body hair to dismantle the sanitized, hairless traditions of academic female nudes.

Womanhouse (1972)

A landmark collaborative feminist art project organized in an abandoned Hollywood mansion by Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, and their CalArts students, transforming rooms into immersive spatial critiques of domesticity.

Essentialist vs. Constructivist Feminism

The theoretical division within feminist art: essentialism emphasizes shared female biology and universal housewife experiences, whereas constructivism examines gender as socially constructed, addressing diverse intersections of race, class, and sexuality.

The Dinner Party (1979)

A monumental triangular ceramic and textile installation by Judy Chicago setting place settings with vulva-styled porcelain plates and embroidered runners for 39 historic and legendary women.

Self-Portrait (1917 / 1883)

An unidealized self-portrait by self-taught French artist Suzanne Valadon painted at age 18, demonstrating early naturalism and a frank, determined gaze unconcerned with conventional feminine charm.

The Blue Room (1923)

An iconic painting by Suzanne Valadon presenting an odalisque subversion: a working-class woman lounging comfortably in striped pajama bottoms on a daybed with a lit cigarette and books, ignoring the male viewer.

Self-portrait (1931)

A confrontational late self-portrait by Suzanne Valadon depicting her aging, unidealized bare breasts and weathered face with uncompromising realism and psychological resolve.

The "New Woman"

An early 20th-century cultural archetype celebrating female financial independence, professional autonomy, short bobbed hairstyles, tailored masculine suits, and frank, self-determined sexuality.

Portrait of the Duchess of La Salle (1925)

An Art Deco portrait by Tamara de Lempicka depicting Greek duchess Marika standing authoritatively on red steps in riding breeches, boots, and a man’s tailored trench coat rendered with sharp chiaroscuro.

Maternity (1928)

An Art Deco painting by Tamara de Lempicka depicting a mother nursing an infant with a distant, detached facial expression, capturing the exhaustion, alienation, and emotional ambivalence of motherhood.

La Belle Rafaela (1928)

A dramatic reclining nude painting by Tamara de Lempicka portraying her lover Rafaëla through deep chiaroscuro, turning the model's closed eyes away from the viewer to retain autonomy over her own desire.

Stieglitz Circle

The network of pioneering American modernists promoted by photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz through venues such as Gallery 291 and An American Place, which championed artists like Georgia O'Keeffe.

Lake George (1919)

An early modernist canvas by Georgia O'Keeffe distilling a favorite upstate New York summer retreat into simplified swirling color harmonies, rhythmic contours, and organic abstractions.

Music-Pink and Blue II (1919)

An abstract composition by Georgia O'Keeffe derived from synesthetic concepts of visualizing sonic chords as floral and geological folds, which the artist insistently defended against anatomical Freudian readings.

Black Iris III (1926)

A close-up floral painting by Georgia O'Keeffe magnifying petals into monumental velvet surfaces to cultivate an "art of seeing" in the fast-paced modern world, resisting anatomical reductionism.

Fragment of Rancho Church (1929)

A Southwest landscape by Georgia O'Keeffe focusing on the organic curves and geometric adobe buttresses of the historic Taos church, blending natural earth and architecture.

Olympia (1863)

Édouard Manet's foundational modern painting whose composition privileges a reclining white prostitute while subordinating the Black maid holding flowers to an ornamental, non-sexualized background shadow.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907)

Pablo Picasso's Cubist canvas depicting five sex workers, using angular Iberian carving and appropriated African tribal masks to shock viewers and evoke animalistic, primal threat.

Forever Free (1933)

A carved wood sculpture by Harlem Renaissance artist Sargent Johnson portraying a dignified Black mother sheltering two children along her skirt, directly referencing the Emancipation Proclamation to challenge racist media caricatures.