The Story of Art Without Men

I’ve got the lovely slip case version of this since it came out, and have always meant to read it through, but never quite got around to it.

Since I read Noclin and Greer, and other second wave feminists art historians during my Art History degree and have continued to explore art through a feminist and Marxist lens since.

What Katy Hessel has done her is to build on the work of these authors from the 70s and onward to produce a review of artists taking in different periods and styles.

Rather than comparing to their male contemporaries they are discussed as artists in their own right and how they progressed the work and visibility of women in the art spaces of the world.

Each artist gets such a small section that at times you feel that you are screeching thorough art history at breakneck speed, but what it did was give me names and periods to explore further as a good survey should.

This was a great book in hardback but it is an essential book in paperback for those who need to see a well researched and developed survey of women artists throughout the world.