Brushed Aside

Try naming female artists and most people land on a few twentieth-century figures such as Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe or Marina Abramovic. Going back before the Modern era is harder, and even experienced museum visitors may struggle to think of earlier women beyond Artemisia Gentileschi. Brushed Aside widens the frame to ask what women have contributed to art across all the roles they have filled.

The book covers women who made art, but it does not stop at painters, sculptors and other practitioners. It also looks at curators, critics, patrons, collectors, muses, models and women who shaped art culture as influencers. Taken together, these figures show how women have affected the production, judgment, funding and circulation of art, and how they have gained or lost authority within it.

The book responds to Linda Nochlin's 1971 essay "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" by arguing that there have been many great women artists and that women have repeatedly shaped how art history is told. Its central claim is that the whole of art history can be retold through women's contributions, giving long-overdue recognition to artists and influencers who remain little known.