Bøger i Illuminating Women Artists serien

This stunning new volume is the first accessibly written, illustrated, English-language biography of Rosalba Carriera, one of the most famous women artists in eighteenth-century Europe.

This insightful volume is the first English-language book to explore the life and legacy of Elisabetta Sirani, one of the most celebrated women artists of seventeenth-century Italy.

This is an accessibly written, illustrated biography of Venetian painter Rosalba Carriera (1673-1757), one of the most famous women artists in 18th-century Europe. It presents an overview of her life and work, considering Carriera's miniatures alongside her better-known, larger-scale works. Focusing on interpretation of her paintings in the historical context of her life as a single woman in Venice, the book offers an easy guide through Carriera¿s life, the people she met, her clients and her artistic approach. The author's new iconographic analysis of some of Carriera's works reveals that she was an erudite painter, drawing on antiquity as well as the work of Renaissance virtuosos such as Leonardo da Vinci and Paolo Veronese.Â

Elisabetta Sirani of Bologna (1638-1665) was one of the most innovative and prolific artists of the Bolognese School. Not only a painter, she was also a printmaker and a teacher. Based on extensive archival documentation and primary sources ‿ including inventories, sale catalogues and her work diary ‿ Elisabetta Sirani provides an overview of the life, work, critical fortune and legacy of this successful Baroque artist. Placing her within the context of the post-Tridentine society that both inhibited and supported her, Modesti examines Sirani's influence on many of the artists studying at Bologna's school for professional women artists, as well as her significance in the professionalisation of women‿s artistic practice in the seventeenth century. Beautifully illustrated throughout, Elisabetta Sirani focuses on women‿s agency. More specifically, it explores Sirani‿s identity as both a woman and an artist, including her professional ambition, self-fashioning and literary construction as Bologna‿s pre-eminent cultural heroine.

Examined through the lens of cutting-edge scholarship, Artemisia Gentileschi clears a pathway for non-specialist audiences to appreciate the artist's pictorial intelligence, as well as her achievement of a remarkably lucrative and high-profile career. Bringing to light recent archival discoveries and newly attributed paintings, this book highlights Gentileschi's enterprising and original engagement with emerging feminist notions of the value and dignity of womanhood. Beautifully illustrated throughout, Artemisia Gentileschi brings to life the extraordinary story of this Italian artist, placing her within a socio-historical context. Sheila Barker weaves the story with in-depth discussions of key artworks, examining them in terms of their iconographies and technical characteristics in order to portray the developments in Gentileschi's approach to her craft and the gradual evolution of her expressive goals and techniques.

This beautifully illustrated monograph presents the first overview in English of the life and work of Luisa Roldán (1652‿1706), a prolific and celebrated sculptor of the Spanish Golden Age. The daughter of Pedro Roldán, a well-known sculptor from Seville, she developed her talent in her father‿s workshop. Early in her career she produced large polychromed wooden sculptures for churches in Seville, Cádiz, and surrounding towns. She spent the second half of her career in Madrid, where she worked in both polychromed wood and polychromed terracotta, developing new products for a domestic, devotional market. In recognition of her talent, she was awarded the title of Sculptor to the Royal Chambers of two kings of Spain, Charles II and Philip V. This book places Roldán within a wider historical and social context, exploring what life would have been like for her as a woman sculptor in early modern Spain. It considers her work alongside that of other artists of the Baroque period, including Velázquez, Murillo, and Zurbarán. Reflecting on the opportunities available to her during this time, as well as the challenges she faced, Catherine Hall-van den Elsen weaves the narrative of Roldán's story with analysis, revealing the complexities of her oeuvre. Every year, newly discovered sculptures in wood and in terracotta enter into Roldán‿s oeuvre. As her artistic output begins to attract greater attention from scholars and art lovers, Luisa Roldán provides invaluable insights into her artistic achievements.