Linda Nochlin
Professor and art historian Linda Nochlin is a leader in feminist art history studies. In 1971, the magazine ArtNews published an essay whose title posed a question that would spearhead an entirely new branch of art history. The essay was called "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" As the title suggests, the essay explores possible reasons as to why women artists had not achieved the same historical notoriety as their male counterparts. Nochlin examined why male artists such as Michelangelo has been revered for centuries as an artistic genius while female artists such as Sofonisba Anguissola, Artemisia Gentileschi, Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun, Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, Rosa Bonheur, Angelica Kauffman, Vanessa Bell, Marie Bashkirtseff, Cecilia Beaux, Hannah Höch, Hilma af Klint, Suzanne Valadon, Harriet Backer, and Gwen John (to name a very few) have been completely passed over.
Nochlin has also been involved in publishing other essays and books including Representing Women; Women, Art, and Power: And Other Essays; The Politics of Vision: Essays on Nineteenth-Century Art and Society; and Women in the 19th Century: Categories and Contradictions.
Nochlin received her PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University in 1963. After working in the art history departments at Yale University and the City College of New York (with Rosalind Krauss), she then took a position at the Institute of Fine Arts, where she continues to teach and inspire today.
Further reading
Nochlin, Linda. "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" ARTnews Jan. 1971: 22-39, 67-71.
Nochlin, Linda. "Memoirs of an Ad Hoc Art Historian." Representing Women (London: Thames, 1999): 6-33.