7 European Female Artists to Inspire You on This International Women’s Day

How many pre-1940s famous female artists could you name? Although women painters are getting more recognition and serious study than ever before, many people are still surprised that there’s been so many women working in the predominantly male artistic sphere during the past centuries. Let’s take a look at some great women painters to remember.

Renaissance Portraitist

The late Renaissance artist Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1532 –1625) was one of the first female artists who enjoyed an established international reputation during her lifetime. The daughter of a nobleman, she had seven siblings, whom she often portrayed in her paintings. She was said to have been encouraged in her art by Michelangelo, who approved of her painting when shown it. She became a portrait painter at the court of Phillip II of Spain, painting for his daughter, Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, and third wife, Elisabeth of Valois.

Family portrait, Minerva, Amilcare and Asdrubale Anguissola, ca 1559. Sofonisba Anguissola

This painting by the young Renaissance artist shows her family – her sister, Minerva, her father Amilcare Anguissola, and her younger brother Asdrubale, as well as a family pet. Sofonisba’s father believed in giving his children the best possible education, even naming them after famous historical and mythological figures: Sofonisba (or Sophonisba) was a heroine of ancient Carthage, Asdrubale is the Italian form of Hasdrubal – a Carthaginian general who fought against Rome, while Minerva was the Roman goddess of wisdom and justice.

Venetian Master of Pastel Portraits

Rosalba Carriera (1673-1757) was an Italian portrait painter from Venice, who worked in the highly challenging pastel technique. She is considered one of the most successful women artists throughout the ages, having painted numerous portraits of the Italian, French, and German aristocracy. The amazing complexity and lifelike quality of her portraits helped popularize pastels as an appropriate medium for formal portraiture (they had been used for sketches and informal portraits before).

A Tyrolean Innkeeper, circa 1728, Rosalba Carriera

This portrait of a beautiful woman in a lace cap isn’t one of Carriera’s nobility portraits. It is believed that the portrayed woman was an innkeeper or innkeeper’s wife that Rosalba Carriera saw during one of her frequent travels and immortalized in a portrait. It was a very popular painting and numerous copies of it were made. The original has recently been identified thanks to the Venetian artist’s pious habit of slipping in prayer cards into the back of her works’ frames.

Painter of London in Watercolour

Rose Mary Barton (1856 – 1929) was an Irish painter. She worked mainly in watercolours, which weren’t considered a serious art medium and often left to female painters. She is famous for her views of Dublin and London. Her paintings are never just architectural studies; the artist focuses instead on the very aura of the city with its inhabitants and its very weather an integral part of it.

The Embankment, an illustration from ''Familiar London'' (1904) by Irish artist Rose Barton

Her illustration “The Embankment” comes from “Familiar London”, a book of London views published by the artist. It shows a lamplighter lighting the elaborate lamps by the river Thames, while a woman and child walk past.

Tongue-in-cheek Painter of Ghosts

Adelaide Claxton (1841 –1927) was an unusual female artist. She was one of the first British women artists to earn her livelihood from her art, contributing satirical illustrations to various publications. Her paintings often feature ghosts and other supernatural elements in a sort of humorous way.

"Wonderland", ca.1870, Adelaide Claxton

“Wonderland” is perhaps Adelaide Claxton’s most well-known painting. It shows a girl sitting in an armchair in the library, immersed in her book. There are ghostly silhouettes of a lady and a jousting knight floating by the girl’s side, but her widened eyes and the title of the book she’s holding, “Grimm’s Goblins” suggest that she’s reading something spooky. The names of the books stacked by her side include: “Arabian Nights” and “Lancashire Witch”. The girl is so fascinated by her book that she doesn’t seem to notice the ghosts, but her cat is hissing at the ghostly shape rising out of the candle smoke. The starlit sky outside the window and the fact that the library is lit by a single candle imply that the girl is staying up late without permission, perhaps even reading something that she’s still not allowed to.

Foreign Female Artist Accepted at the Salon in Paris

Marie Bashkirtseff (1858-1884), birth name Maria Konstantinovna Bashkirtseva) was a Ukrainian painter, who lived and worked in Paris. She became an artist at a time when few women managed to study art and get their works exhibited. She was an exceptionally ambitious artist, thirsting for glory and naming the first volume of her diary “I Am the Most Interesting Book of All: The Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff” (1997), published in a heavily edited form by her mother after Marie Bashkirtseff’s death.

Young Woman Reading: The Question of Divorce. 1880. Bashkirtseff

One of her most famous paintings is “Young Woman Reading: The Question of Divorce” (1880) which is unusual in its tackling of progressive, feminist themes. It was accepted at the Salon in 1880. Until 1884, when divorce was reestablished in France, it was practically impossible to put an end to a marriage, especially for a woman to initiate it. Cases weren’t even considered on grounds of male infidelity, for example. Public opinion would often condemn a woman seeking divorce or marriage annulment, even if there were serious reasons for it, like domestic violence against her or her children.

Painting Through War and Peace

Laura Knight (1877-1970) was a British painter. Although now often remembered for her paintings of the circus and ballet, she was an exceptionally versatile artist that wasn’t afraid to tackle a variety of themes, compositions, and techniques. Laura Knight was one of the official British war artists during the Second World War, painting a witness account of the Nuremberg Trial. She also was one of the first artists to paint unembellished images of life in the Romani communities of the British Isles.

Beulah, the Gypsy Girl. Laura Knight

“Beulah, the Gypsy Girl” is one such unadorned portrait of a young Romani woman. There’s no adorned exoticism and it looks realistic, unlike the numerous Victorian-era images of gypsy women inspired by Victor Hugo’s Esmeralda and the vogue for Orientalism and exoticism.

Spiritual Allegorist

Evelyn De Morgan (1855 –1919) was a British artist, working in styles associated with Aestheticism and Symbolism and heavily influenced by the British Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Her paintings have a complex allegorical component and often feature radiant, jewel-like colours. Characteristics of her style include the use of symbols and spiritualist themes. A supporter of the women’s suffrage movement, Evelyn De Morgan created many works that show powerful female characters, while her war-related paintings reveal her pacifist ideals.

Lux in tenebris, 1895. Evelyn De Morgan

“Lux in Tenebris” (translated as “Light in the Darkness”) is an allegorical image of a woman personifying Good (as opposed to Evil). The Latin phrase comes from the Gospel of John: “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John 1:5, King James Version). Although the passage refers to Jesus as the Light of the World, Evelyn De Morgan did not literally illustrate the text. She created a universal allegory of Light (Good) as the force that opposes Darkness (Evil), as it reflected her spiritualist worldview. The fact that light triumphs over darkness is empathized by the laurel branch held by the woman; laurel was a well-known symbol of victory since the Roman times.

Lux in tenebris, 1895. detail of laurel. Evelyn De Morgan

Lux in tenebris, 1895. detail of monsters. Evelyn De Morgan

At the bottom of the painting, where the rays of light still haven’t reached, lurk alligator-like monsters that represent the evil forces of darkness. The egg-like halo around the figure is called mandorla and it was often used to frame Christ’s figure in Byzantine and early Renaissance art.

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