Can you name #5WomenArtists?

Off the top of your head, can you name five artists? If you can, how many of them are women?

During Women’s History Month, we’re participating in the National Museum of Women in the Arts’ campaign #5WomenArtists to highlight women in the arts — particularly the inequity they face. Here, CMA curators offer insight on five women whose works are in the museum’s permanent collection, one of which will be the focus of a survey exhibition this summer. If you’d like to participate, head over to the NMWA’s blog to find out more.

Yayoi Kusama

For the past six decades, Yayoi Kusama (Japanese, born 1929) has worked across media, developing a groundbreaking body of work that has greatly impacted younger generations of artists. In 1993 she was the first woman to represent Japan at the Venice Biennale, and in 2016 Time magazine named her one of the world’s most influential people.

Born in Matsumoto, Kusama moved to the United States in 1957, settling a year later in New York, where she lived for 15 years. Within the city’s avant-garde art circles, Kusama honed her unique artistic voice and began receiving widespread recognition. She created paintings and sculptures in her signature dot and net patterns, as well as installations and live performance works.

In 1965 Kusama began integrating mirrors into her art when she lined the interior of Phalli’s Field, the first of many Infinity Mirror Rooms. At once, complex patterns emerged through the kaleidoscopic relationship between the mirrors and the materials inside the chamber, appearing to extend infinitely in all directions. The concept of infinity has been a central interest for Kusama; the idea continues to resurface throughout her work in diverse media. In 1973 Kusama returned to Tokyo, where she still lives and continues to work tirelessly at age 88.

— Reto Thüring, Chair of Modern, Contemporary, and Decorative Art, and Performing Arts and Curator of Contemporary Art

The exhibition Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors will be at the Cleveland Museum of Art from Saturday, July 7, to Sunday, September 30. Learn how to secure tickets here.

Edmonia Lewis

A true pioneer, Edmonia Lewis (American, c. 1844–1907) was the first female artist of color from the United States to gain international renown. Of Native American (Ojibwe) and African American ancestry, she studied at Oberlin College in Ohio before establishing a studio in Rome, Italy, where she created marble carvings eagerly collected on both sides of the Atlantic.

At a time in our nation’s history when racial prejudices and gender inequities were prevalent, Lewis received widespread acclaim and served as an inspiration to fellow artists. She once stated, “I have a strong sympathy for all women who have struggled and suffered.”

— Mark Cole, Curator of American Painting and Sculpture (up to 1960)

See Edmonia Lewis’ masterwork, Indian Combat, pictured above, on view NOW in gallery 207.

“At a time in our nation’s history when racial prejudices and gender inequities were prevalent, Lewis received widespread acclaim and served as an inspiration to fellow artists. She once stated, ‘I have a strong sympathy for all women who have struggled and suffered.’“— Mark Cole, Curator of American Painting and Sculpture

Berthe Morisot

The Impressionists were mostly men with a few notable exceptions, including Berthe Morisot (French, 1841–1895). While her work features many of the hallmarks of Impressionism, such as loose brushwork, the subject matter often reflects the social constraints of her gender. Morisot first exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1864 and continued doing so until 1873. She also displayed her work in the first Impressionist exhibition, held in the Paris studio of photographer Félix Nadar in 1874. Her paintings often depict domestic tableaux or her friends and family, such as a painting of her sister in the museum’s collection (Reading, seen above).

Morisot left a considerable body of work, and she is widely acclaimed for her intimate paintings of family life.

— William Robinson, Senior Curator of Modern Art

See Berthe Morisot’s Reading, pictured above, on view NOW in gallery 222.

Gabrielle Münter

Gabrielle Münter (German, 1877–1962) was a founding member of the Blue Rider, an association of avant-garde artists formed in Munich in 1911. Early on she wanted to become an artist, but the Berlin art academies did not admit women, so she went to Munich to study at the more progressive Phalanx School directed by Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky.

Münter explored new forms of painting featuring boldly simplified forms and intense, arbitrary color. She is critically acclaimed as one of the leading German Expressionists of the twentieth century.

— William Robinson, Senior Curator of Modern Art

See Gabrielle Münter’s Future (Woman in Stockholm), pictured above, on view NOW in gallery 225.

Georgia O’Keeffe

At the time of her death at age 98, Georgia O’Keeffe (American, 1887–1986) was among the most prominent artists in America. Her career was marked by an unusually determined degree of independence and fierce individualism; at one point while following her artistic vision, she established a home and studio in rural New Mexico, away from the art world center in New York City where her husband resided.

O’Keeffe’s floral, still life, and landscape paintings have influenced generations of painters, and her popularity remains strong. Recently one of her canvases set the auction record for a work by a female artist.

— Mark Cole, Curator of American Painting and Sculpture (up to 1960)

See Georgia O’Keeffe’s White Flower, pictured above, on view NOW in gallery 226A.