‘Women to the Fore’ this fall at Hudson River Museum

Hudson River Museum announces Women to the Fore, on view through January 3, 2021, an exhibit exploring and celebrating the multifaceted and diverse art works by more than forty female-identifying artists over a span of one hundred and fifty years.

“In Women to the Fore, it is especially exciting to share excellent work by contemporary local artists in juxtaposition with the forebears of feminist art,” says Masha Turchinsky, Director and CEO of the Hudson River Museum.”

True to its title, Women to the Fore gives voice and space to more than forty female-identifying artists, spanning one hundred and fifty years. This exhibition—drawn from the Museum’s permanent collection as well as loans from regional artists, galleries, and collectors—focuses on the rich diversity and range of expression in a group of artists working in paintings and drawings, prints and photographs, collage, and sculpture. While some artists are internationally recognized, a strong new contingent is now emerging, whose names and talents warrant being known. The installation will gather and compare works from different eras and media and will include interpretation that stems from the artists’ own words. 

Artists on view from the collection include Berenice Abbott, Denise Allen, Isabel Bishop, Harriet Blackstone, Ebony Bolt, Judy Chicago, Rose Clark, Joséphine Douet, Camille Eskell, Audrey Flack, Nancy Graves, Susan Hall, Susan Leopold, Evelyn Longman, Marisol, Ann McCoy, Barbara Morgan, Louise Nevelson, Georgia O’Keeffe, Merle Perlmutter, Ellen Robbins, Yvonne Thomas, and Susan Wides. Artists represented by loans to the exhibition are Seongmin Ahn, Vinnie Bagwell, Shanequa Benitez, Mary Cassatt, Mary Frank, Mary Frey, Harriet Whitney Frishmuth, Judy Giera, Amaryllis De Jesus Moleski, Ola Rondiak, Helen Searle, Tuesday Smillie, Julia Santos Solomon, Jessica Spence, Lilly Martin Spencer, Bessie Potter Vonnoh, Elizabeth Flint Wade, and Anna Walinska.

The Museum commissioned Yonkers-based artists Nancy Mendez, Patricia Santos, and Katori Walker, known for their street murals throughout the city, to paint a collaborative mural, which was supported in part by ArtsWestchester. Entitled The Garden of The Divine Feminine, the mural is inspired by the artists’ own public art practice and expression of identity. During the course of the exhibition, the Museum will provide opportunities in the galleries, in our bucolic Courtyard, and online to welcome public participation and to ensure that many perspectives are presented for consideration.

In 2020, many people and institutions are taking stock of the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment. At the HRM, we celebrate those important strides, while simultaneously recognizing where that amendment notably failed to offer equal voting rights for all American women. Women are still fighting for freedom, and art is a powerful tool to help us see the complexity of their lives and ideas. Female-identifying artists have distinguished themselves by working persistently within an oppressive patriarchal system and by rebelling against this status quo.

With each succeeding generation, they have created work that raises awareness of interdependent systems of discrimination and how to make productive change. Today, feminist art history has expanded to embrace intersectionality: the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender. 

While no single exhibition can cover such a multifaceted story, the artists in Women to the Fore challenge the dominant textbook history of American art and expand our definition of feminist art history by advocating for diversity, inclusion, and gender equity in museums, the art world, and beyond. In the nineteenth century, still life was one of the only subjects considered “appropriate” for women. Since then, artists like Georgia O’Keeffe, Ebony Bolt, and Joséphine Douet have expanded the boundaries of that genre to become shepherds and observers of nature, urban environs, and cycles of life.

Redefining women’s roles as nurturers, caregivers, and community advocates motivates Vinnie Bagwell, Tuesday Smillie, and Jessica Spence, who look to their own experiences to express a broad range of personal connections. A number of artists champion women as agents of exploration into the interrelation of sex, gender, race, and ethnicity in modern society, including Judy Chicago, Judy Giera, Marisol, and Shanequa Benitez. Reflection upon homelands and movement across borders is a major concern of Seongmin Ahn, Julia Santos Solomon, and Ola Rondiak.

Across the spectrum of these themes, in many cases, the art is political, in ways both overt and subversive.

The exhibition is co-curated by Laura Vookles, Chair of the HRM’s Curatorial Department, and Victoria McKenna-Ratjen, Curatorial Assistant.

The exhibition will be featured on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter via the hashtag #WomenToTheFore.