Results tagged “ceciliabeaux”

Let us say up front that we buy into Virginia Woolf’s theory about women artists: it was/is often lack of opportunity, rather than lack of talent, that keeps the gender imbalance in the classic art canon holding steady. Controversy still abounds as to the placement and display of female artists, particularly whether it matters. If art is good, it is good, right, and will be recognized as such, regardless of gender. Would that it were so. However, in the midst of arguing why women are underrepresented in the artistic pantheons, we can sometimes lose sight of those women who managed to break through those barriers presented by societal and cultural expectations. One is the subject of an exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts: Philadelphia native Cecilia Beaux, who was once described by painter William Merritt Chase as “not only the greatest living woman painter, but the best that has ever lived.”