HerStory of Art: Vol. 2

An exhaustive compilation of all the women painters of the 18th century

When a visitor enters the Prado Museum, they expect to see Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez, not the still lifes of Clara Peeters. However, both belong to the same artistic style and have immeasurable historical value.

Herstory of Art vol. 2 aims to address the gap in art history knowledge: women artists. Often overlooked, these women were artistically disregarded and historically forgotten. It seeks to address the urgent need to find and name women artists from across the 18th century, filling in a multitude of
blank spaces to paint a more complete picture of the history of art. Working from the premise “no woman left behind”, Sara Rubayo and Ana Gállego have worked tirelessly to shed light on all the female painters who have been kept hidden in the dark.

With Art History’s lamentable track record of presenting women as either muses or amateurs, this exhaustive album seeks to set that record straight by challenging the received narrative and rescuing the scores of forgotten women artists about whom very little has ever been published. However short their story may have been, each of these women and their contributions to the world of art deserves to be known far and wide.

Herstory of Art is a collection that seeks to rescue all those women artists condemned to the scrap heap of time and finally allow them to take their rightful place in ‘herstory’.