Women in the picture : women, art and the power of looking

'Incisive and provocative ... a sensitive and probing critique' The New York Times 'Essential reading ... gripping, inspirational, beautifully written and highly thought-provoking' Dr Helen Gørrill, author of Women Can't Paint A bold reconsideration of women in art - from the 'Old Masters' to the posts of Instagram influencers A perfect pin-up, a damsel in distress, a saintly mother, a femme fatale ... Women's identity has long been stifled by a limited set of archetypes, found everywhere in pictures from art history's classics to advertising, while women artists have been overlooked and held back from shaping more empowering roles. In this impassioned book, art historian Catherine McCormack asks us to look again at what these images have told us to value, opening up our most loved images - from those of Titian and Botticelli to Picasso and the Pre-Raphaelites. She also shows us how women artists - from Berthe Morisot to Beyoncé, Judy Chicago to Kara Walker - have offered us new ways of thinking about women's identity, sexuality, race and power. Women in the Picture gives us new ways of seeing the art of the past and the familiar images of today so that we might free women from these restrictive roles and embrace the breadth of women's vision. 'A call to arms in a world where the misogyny that taints much of the western art canon is still largely ignored' Financial Times 'It felt like the scales were falling from my eyes as I read it.' The Herald

A bold reconsideration of women in art – from the 'Old Masters' to the posts of Instagram influencers

A perfect pin-up, a damsel in distress, a saintly mother, a femme fatale ...

Women's identity has long been stifled by a limited set of archetypes, found everywhere in pictures from art history's classics to advertising, while women artists have been overlooked and held back from shaping more empowering roles.

In this impassioned book, art historian Catherine McCormack asks us to look again at what these images have told us to value, opening up our most loved images – from those of Titian and Botticelli to Picasso and the Pre-Raphaelites. She also shows us how women artists – from Berthe Morisot to Beyoncé, Judy Chicago to Kara Walker – have offered us new ways of thinking about women's identity, sexuality, race and power.

Women in the Picture gives us new ways of seeing the art of the past and the familiar images of today so that we might free women from these restrictive roles and embrace the breadth of women's vision.

A feminist visual manifesto. Women in the Picture is a fierce challenge to the ways we depict, and are taught to see, women's bodies. Plunging into the realms of art history, popular visual culture and advertising, McCormack opens our eyes to how archetypal depictions of women - as mothers, daughters, Venuses, whores or 'nasty women' - have encouraged us to objectify and subjugate, and to normalise violence towards them. Taking in classic works of art by the likes of Titian and Picasso, as well as contemporary representations of women in everything from Hollywood films to perfume advertisements to censored Instagram images, we'll reconsider the context in which images of women have been produced, displayed and reproduced - and the appeal to 'beauty' that has stopped us from seeing the misogyny of some of the world's 'greatest' artists and public figures. It's time to learn new ways of seeing.-- Source other than the Library of Congress Women in the Picture' is a fierce challenge to the ways we depict, and are taught to see, women's bodies.0Plunging into the realms of art history, popular visual culture and advertising, McCormack opens our eyes to how archetypal depictions of women - as mothers, daughters, Venuses, whores or 'nasty women' - have encouraged us to objectify and subjugate, and to normalise violence towards them. 0Taking in classic works of art by the likes of Titian and Picasso, as well as contemporary representations of women in everything from Hollywood films to perfume advertisements to censored Instagram images, we'll reconsider the context in which images of women have been produced, displayed and reproduced - and the appeal to 'beauty' that has stopped us from seeing the misogyny of some of the world's 'greatest' artists and public figures. 0It's time to learn new ways of seeing