Identity Unknown

Rediscovering Seven American Women Artists

De: Donna Seaman

Narrado por: Dina Pearlman

Who hasn't wondered where - aside from Georgia O'Keeffe and Frida Kahlo - all the women artists are? In many art books, they've been marginalized with cold efficiency, summarily dismissed in the captions of group photographs with the phrase 'identity unknown' while each male is named. Donna Seaman brings to dazzling life seven of these forgotten artists, among the best of their day: Gertrude Abercrombie, with her dark, surreal paintings and friendships with Dizzy Gillespie and Sonny Rollins; Bay Area self-portraitist Joan Brown; Ree Morton, with her witty, oddly beautiful constructions; Loïs Mailou Jones of the Harlem Renaissance; Lenore Tawney, who combined weaving and sculpture when art and craft were considered mutually exclusive; Christina Ramberg, whose unsettling works drew on pop culture and advertising; and Louise Nevelson, an art-world superstar in her heyday but omitted from recent surveys of her era. These women fought to be treated the same as male artists, to be judged by their work, not their gender or appearance. In brilliant, compassionate prose, Seaman reveals what drove them, how they worked, and how they were perceived by others in a world where women were subjects - not makers - of art. Identity Unknown speaks to all women about their neglected place in history and the challenges they face to be taken as seriously as men no matter what their chosen field - and to all men interested in women's lives.

©2017 Bloomsbury US (P)2017 Audible, Ltd

Good read for any art lovers looking to educate themselves on underrepresented artists

Books such as this and others focusing on female artists (see ‘Broad Strokes’ by Bridget Quinn) are so important for helping to fill the gaps left by art historians & Art History textbooks. Traditional Art History textbooks are woefully notorious for their neglect of female artists. Good read for any art lovers looking to educate themselves on underrepresented artists.

One of the worst I’ve read

This book is filled withe hype and ignorance. It’s appalling, and I’d return it if I could. There is a lack of knowledge and co text that is breathtaking. Better to read any of the founding women writing about art in the 70s and 80s: Nochlin, Pollock, Chadwick or Shor, or so many others too numerous to name.