Art history has put aside women artists for a long period of time. Art was a predominantly male-oriented field, so women were often overlooked. The situation was even more complicated when it came to couples who shared the same profession. Those women were only known as wives of famous artists whose work was overshadowed by their spouse’s success. Frida Kahlo, Lee Krasner, Dorothea Tanning, Elaine de Kooning, Gabriele Münter, and Josephine Hopper shared a similar fate during their lifetime, only to be revitalized in their later years or posthumously.
1. Mexican Woman Artist Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo represents a very interesting phenomenon since she posthumously became much more popular than her husband Diego Rivera, who was better known during her lifetime. Kahlo’s work was revitalized during the 1970s thanks to art historians and activists since her persona was accepted as the symbol of feminism, the LGBTQ+ community, and the Chicano movement (a sociopolitical movement that took place in 1960s and 1970s America promoting Chicano identity, fighting racism and assimilation). From then on, Frida Kahlo’s popularity skyrocketed.
Born in 1907 in Mexico, Kahlo embraced her Mexican identity both privately and publicly. She began to wear traditional Indigenous garments such as long and colorful skirts, massive jewelry, and decorative headpieces. Her interest in the religion, philosophy, and culture of ancient Mexico is reflected in her artwork as well. As one of the most famous female Surrealists, she combined reality with fantasy, often employing introspection when creating a painting. Of her 143 paintings, 55 were self-portraits, which is very telling of her interest in her own physical and spiritual self. Using a naive stylistic approach, flattened perspective, bold color palette, and clearly outlined forms, Kahlo frequently represented her inner emotional world.
Even though she was a prolific painter, she had only two solo exhibitions during her lifetime. The degree to which she was overshadowed by her prominent husband Diego Rivera is most evident if we look at their stay in the U.S. when he was commissioned to paint murals. Kahlo gave an interview for the Detroit News on her artworks which was titled rather sneeringly Wife of the Master Mural Painter Gleefully Dabbles in Works of Art.
However, the tables have turned, and Frida Kahlo received recognition in the following decades. Nevertheless, it is important to note that there is some criticism regarding the commercialization of Kahlo’s life and work. The physical pain she suffered and her tumultuous marriage to Rivera sparked such public interest that her artwork was interpreted only in terms of her private life. This produced oversimplified explanations of her paintings, harming her artistic legacy.
2. The Action Widow: Lee Krasner
Unceremoniously dubbed the action widow, Lee Krasner was for long referred to only in terms of her marriage to Jackson Pollock and his tragic car crash death. Even though Krasner was just as talented as Pollock, her work wasn’t recognized until the 1970s. Born in 1908 in New York, Lee Krasner attended Women’s Art School at Cooper Union and went to the National Academy of Design. Associated with Abstract Expressionism, Krasner took lessons from Hans Hofmann, an artist and a teacher who paved the way for the abovementioned movement.
During the Great Depression, she took part in the New Deal art project and began painting murals. This fact is a testament to how versatile she was as an artist. Besides murals, she produced oil paintings, collages, drawings, and even mosaics. Krasner showed diversity when it came to style as well, always experimenting. Sometimes she would work in small formats (e.g. her famous Little Images series), while at other times, she would create large-scale paintings, like Assault on the Solar Plexus. She would also vary between vibrant colors and subdued palettes, never accepting one singular stylistic approach.
Krasner’s union with Pollock, to whom she had been married since 1945, proved to be of mutual benefit since they influenced one another. Pollock inspired her to be more spontaneous, gestural, and uninhibited when producing art, while Krasner’s all-over technique influenced Pollock’s famous drip paintings. Furthermore, Krasner propelled her husband’s career, by introducing him to numerous art collectors, artists, and critics such as Peggy Guggenheim, Willem de Kooning, and Clement Greenberg.
Nevertheless, her work somehow always wound up in the shadow of Pollock’s success. Even when she received praise, it was in a very sexist manner. Hofmann, for example, complimented her work by saying that it was so good, that one could not know it was painted by a woman. An art critic, Robert Hughes, expressed his approval also in a discriminatory way: “Is there a less feminine woman artist of her generation? Probably not.” Both of these comments are a display of the predominant mentality of the period when Krasner lived and created. Women’s work had to possess “masculine” qualities in order to be of any value.
3. I Have No Label Except Artist: Dorothea Tanning
Dorothea Tanning was born in 1910 in Illinois. She lived a very long and fruitful life, passing at the age of 102 in 2012. Tanning decided to leave Knox College after two years of studying there in order to pursue an artistic career. Not only was she a visual artist, but she was also an exceptional writer and poet. When it comes to her style, her oeuvre is quite divergent. Even though she began her career as a Surrealist painter, exploring the realms of dreams, unconscious mind, and desires, by the late 60s, she turned to abstract art. Therefore, Tanning gave the best description of her artistic fluidity in her own words: “Must we artists bow our heads and accept a label, without which we do not exist? The underlying ideas of Surrealism are still very much with me. But I have no label except artist.”
Moreover, Tanning became interested in three-dimensional forms, thus producing an installation Hotel du Pavot, Chambre 202 in 1970-1973. Instead of employing traditional hard and solid materials, she used wool, fabric, and synthetic fur to create humanlike forms. Perhaps the interest Tanning showed in the human body (especially women’s) is the only constant in her long and prolific career. Even when she delved into abstraction, her work was always suggestive of the female form.
Finally, one of the things Dorothea Tanning is also known for is being married to a great Surrealist artist Max Ernst whom she met in 1942. A summer trip to Sedona proved to be of vital importance to their art since they found the place had “landscapes of wild fantasy,” as Tanning wrote in her memoir Between Lives. The couple decided to buy their own property and Tanning created some of her most famous works there (e.g. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik). She found the dimmed interior of their house inspiring when creating a painting of a somber atmosphere with eerie female creatures.
4. A Presidential Portraitist: Elaine de Kooning
Elaine de Kooning, born in New York in 1918, was an important representative of Abstract Expressionism. She also took an interest in writing, so she worked as an editorial associate for ARTnews magazine, offering her critique on the contemporary art scene. Finally, De Kooning held classes at many renowned institutions, such as Yale University and Parsons School of Design.
Even though she was productive and creative when it came to her art, exploring various mediums such as pencil, ink, oil, watercolor, charcoal, and gouache, Elaine de Kooning was overshadowed by her husband Willem de Kooning. The most appropriate example of it is the 1949 exhibition titled Artists: Man and Wife that took place at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York. The goal was to represent the work of famous art couples: Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth, and Jean Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp. The art of the De Kooning couple was also represented. Elaine herself said that she felt as if the exhibition merely “attached wives to the ‘real’ artists.”
Ultimately, Elaine de Kooning is the most celebrated for her portraits of men. Even though she was an abstract expressionist painter, she never abandoned the figurative approach. Thus, she produced various portraits of prominent men such as Allen Ginsberg, Harold Rosenberg, and Leo Castelli. By doing so, she completely reversed the traditional roles between the female object of the gaze and the male painter/spectator. She was now the one looking and exploring men’s sexuality. Her most important portrait is that of John F. Kennedy since she offered an unconventional approach to the official paintings of presidents. As art historian Simona Cupic points out, in this 1963 portrait, there are no patriotic colors or symbols of the presidency. De Kooning’s aim was to capture the youthful character and intense energy of the president through the pose he assumed.
5. A Founding Member of Der Blaue Reiter: Gabriele Münter
Born in Germany in 1877, Gabriele Münter, an Expressionist painter, was lucky to have encouraging parents who supported her decision to pursue an artistic career. She took lessons from artists Ernst Bosch and Willy Spatz, and later she went on to study at the Phalanx School in Munich, which was founded by Wassily Kandinsky. Münter and Kandinsky got engaged, but they never made it to the altar, since he fell in love with another woman, whom he married in 1917. Nevertheless, while they were together, Münter had a strong impact on Kandinsky’s art. For example, she inspired him to use bolder colors and to begin to explore abstraction.
Gabriele Münter was curious when it came to her art, so she experimented with various techniques such as drawing, painting, printmaking, and even sculpture. She rejected highbrow academic art and turned to primitive art since she found its rich color palette, bold lines, and simplified forms inspiring and very much in tune with Expressionism. Münter also varied the subjects of her interest, so in her early work, she was fascinated with nature and landscapes, while later, she was more absorbed in the experience of modern life, investigating its alienation.
Finally, Gabriele Münter was one of the founding members of the group Der Blaue Reiter, which was formed in 1911 in Munich. The participants were expressionist artists who explored spiritual and emotional aspects of art through color and abstraction, rejecting conventional notions of art. When World War II broke out, Münter took a risk by obtaining all the art of the group and hiding it in her house. She successfully guarded it, in spite of the repressive Nazi regime and her own financial troubles.
6. Not Just a Wife: Woman Artist Josephine Hopper
Josephine Nivison Hopper was born in New York in 1883. She graduated from Normal College which provided her with teaching skills, but she also obtained a Bachelor of Arts Degree at the New York School of Art in 1904. Even though she worked as a public school teacher, Josephine never turned away from producing art. As art historian Gail Levin emphasizes, Josephine intentionally disregarded the dominant male aesthetic, by creating impressionistic landscapes of light and ethereal color palette. Accordingly, she is recognized as one of the masters of the watercolor technique.
Even so, when Josephine married Edward Hopper in 1924, she sacrificed her artistic career in a way. She completely devoted herself to Hopper’s work. Firstly, she insisted on being his only model. Secondly, she assumed the role of his personal promoter, since he was very much introverted and aloof, thus incapable of advertising his art. Josephine Hopper even provided him with creative assistance, since she would name his work when he couldn’t come up with a suitable title. For example, Josephine gave the name to Hopper’s famous Nighthawks painting. Finally, she perceived their union as a collaborative one, often calling his works their children.
Edward Hopper, on the other hand, wasn’t supportive at all of his wife’s work. Quite the opposite, he was very demeaning when addressing her art, mocking and discouraging her. His dissatisfaction came from the fact that Hopper expected Josephine to be more of a wife in a traditional and domestic sense of the word. Olivia Laing, a writer and culture critic, condemns Hopper’s unjust treatment of Josephine since she was of help to him in more ways than one. Not only did she practically work as his personal assistant, but she also creatively inspired him to take watercolors more seriously. As a result, he received his first critical acclaim for his watercolor paintings, not his oils.
