Women in Art: Presences, Traditional Narration, and Historiographic Problems. The Reception of Italian and Slavic Female Artists in Italy and Abroad

Abstract

Gender studies are one of the most important art history branches at least since 1971 when Linda Nochlin asked the famous question: Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? This provocative question concealed a complex reality. Indeed, at that time, women had fewer opportunities than now to work and emerge in the art world, but simultaneously, there were many records and works proving strong female presence. The problem was, and in part still is, that this existence was not reported by historiographic sources and it needed to be investigated. The situation has changed since then: the art world shows a growing number of established female artists, women can be found at higher academic and professional levels, and the general public is itself often made of women. In recent years, there has been an increase of national and international exhibitions and ventures dedicated to women artists. Nonetheless, the historiographical problem still persists, particularly in Italy. Narration about female artists is often very incomplete; the sources are difficult to find and whole archives have been erased. It is no exaggeration to say that we are witness to a real deliberate obliteration. That’s definitely the case of futurist women artists in the first decades of the 20th century. Such names as Bohemian artist Růžena Zátková are totally forgotten. Yet, she had an extraordinary life and laced relationships with the most prestigious personalities of her time. Moreover, she was deeply connected to Goncharova, as evidenced by two unknown gouache pieces painted by the Russian artist in 1916 as gifts for her friend Zátková, discovered by Dr. Marina Giorgini and recently exhibited at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. None of these names appear in the latest academic textbooks published in Italy: the index of names is too often completely masculine. On the other hand, the search for the reason for this is the main target of FEMM[E] – Arte eventualmente femminile (Rome, 2019), recently edited by Anna Maria Panzera. We want to highlight the heavy oblivion which still weighs on women artists, making difficult a fair judgment of their production.