Women in Art
Women artists mentioned in the play
Heidi is an art historian, with a specialization in women artists. During the play, she shows slides of a number of paintings by women artists, including:
Portrait of Minerva, Sofonisba Anguissola (1559)
Lucia, Minerva and Europa Anguissola Playing Chess, Sofonisba Anguissola (1555)
Self-Portrait, Clara Peeters (c. 1610)
Still Life with Cheeses, Artichoke and Cherries, Clara Peeters (1625)
We Both Must Fade, Lily Martin Spencer (1869)
Lady with a Bowl of Violets, Lilla Cabot Perry (1910)
Lady in Evening Dress, Lilla Cabot Perry (1911)
Judith Beheading Holofernes, Artemisia Gentileschi (c. 1620)
Scholar Cortney Cronberg Barko analyzes the significance of these artists to the play's themes in an article entitled, "Rediscovering Female Voice and Authority: The Revival of Female Artists in Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles" in the journal Frontiers 29.1 (2008): 121-138.
Feminist artists whom Heidi might have studied in the 1970s and 1980s
- American Art: Lesbian, Post-Stonewall by Carla Williams
A page on the website GLBTQ: An Encyclopedia that describes women artists from Heidi's lifetime - WACK! : art and the feminist revolution
This book is the catalog for a 2007 exhibition of feminist art produced between 1965-1980. It is on three-day reserve at Belk Library. - Chicago, Judy (b.1939) by Kelly A. Wacker. GLBTQ: An Encyclopedia. 2002. 23 February 2009
Other women artists through history
To learn about other women artists through history, visit:
- Women and Art in the Renaissance by Meryl Zwanger
An online article published in Columbia University's feminist magazine, Sister - Women Artists: Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
A page on the California State University at Pomona website - Women Artists through the 17th Century
An index page on the ArtCyclopedia website with links to artworks and other sites - Women Artists in History by Wendy Russ
An index page listing medieval through contemporary western artists with links to artworks and other sites - National Museum of Women in the Arts
The website of this unique Washington D.C. museum, which allows you to virtually search their collection