Forgotten Female Painters is a documentary film which premiered in 2024. In 2024, it was shown on French and German television (arte).
The French title is
Peintres géniales et méconnu:
De la renaissance au classicisme
The German title is
Geniale Frauen: Malerinnen von
der Renaissance bis zum Klassizismus
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Writer and director: Dagmar Wittmers
** Narrator of the German version: Nina West
** Language: French or German
** Subtitles: German
** Run time: 95 minutes
The history of forgotten female painters is covered by focusing on four specific persons:
# 1. Sofonisma Anguissola
(ca. 1532-1625)
# 2. Judith Leyster
(1609-1660)
# 3. Angelica Kauffmann
(1741-1807)
# 4. Marie-Guillemine Benoist
(1768-1826)
Six persons are interviewed in the film.
Here are the names of the participants.
Listed in alphabetical order:
** Blaise Ducos – curator, Louvre Museum
** Kathrin Dyballa – curator of the exhibition Geniale Frauen at Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg
** Sabine Engel – an art historian
** Sarah Salomon – an art historian
** Esther Schipper – owner of an art gallery in Berlin
** Ilona van Tuinen – an art historian - Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
This film covers the life and work of the four female painters in great detail.
We learn how and why it was possible for these four women to work as painters in a world and in a society which was almost totally dominated by men.
We get to see some of the works they produced during their time as painters.
The four painters were well-known while they were alive. They were popular in their own time. But when they died, they were soon forgotten by the general public.
Most female painters suffered a similar fate. Things remained the same for many years. There was no change until the second part of the twentieth century.
In the 1960s and the 1970s, with a new wave of feminism, scholars began to rediscover the female artists who had lived and worked in the past.
They had been known for a while, but they were virtually forgotten. Now there was a renewed interest to study their lives and to see the works they created in the past.
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The story of the forgotten female painters is important; it deserves to be told, and in this film, it is done very well.
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PS # 1. Dagmar Wittmers (born 1952) is the director of several documentary films, including the following:
** Die Charité:
Geschichten von Leben und Tod
(2017)
** Die Charité:
Medizin unterm Hakenkreuz
(2019)
** Die Charité:
Ein Krankenhaus im Kalten Krieg
(2021)
PS # 2. An exhibition at Bucerius Kunst Forum in Hamburg:
Geniale Frauen:
Künstlerinnen und ihre Weggefährten
From 14 October 2023 to 28 January 2024.
The exhibition is at Kunstmuseum Basel from 02 March to 30 June 2024.
REFERENCES
# 1. Film and video
The Story of Women and Art
A three-part documentary film which premiered in 2014
Released on DVD in 2015
Host and presenter: Amanda Vickery
[Three of the four artists covered by Dagmar Wittmers are covered by Amanda Vickery. But Marie-Guillemine Benoist is not covered by Amanda Vickery]
The Fabulous Life of Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun
A docudrama which premiered in 2015
# 2. The following item is available online
Paris A. Spies-Gans
“Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Revolutionary Painter,”
Art Her Story
18 December 2020
# 3. Books
Why have there been no great women artists?
By Linda Nochlin
(First published in 1971)
(A 50-year anniversary edition was published in 2021)
Women Artists: 1550-1950
By Ann Sutherland Harris and Linda Nochlin
(1976)
[These two items are pioneer works about the history of female artists]
Sofonisba Anguissola: The First Great Woman Artist of the Renaissance
By Ilya Sandra Perlingieri
(1992)
Judith Leyster:
A Dutch Master and Her World
Edited by Pieter Biesboer and James A. Welu
(1993)
Broad Strokes: 15 Women Artists Who Made Art and Made History (in that order)
By Bridget Quinn
(with illustrations by Lisa Congdon)
(2017)
Eighteenth Century Women Artists:
Their Trials, Tribulations and Triumphs
By Caroline Chapman
(2017)
Great Women Painters
By Phaidon Editors
(2019)
Sofonisba’s Lesson:
A Renaissance Artist and Her Work
By Michael W. Cole
(2020)
The Secret Life of Sofonisba:
The most famous woman you’ve never heard of
By Melissa Muldoon
(2020)
Angelica Kauffmann
By Bettina Baumgärtel
(2020)
Judith Leyster
A Study of Extraordinary Expression
By Nicole Cardinale
(2020)
*****
Sofonisba Anguissola
(ca. 1532-1625)
Painter of the renaissance
*****
Judith Leyster
(1609-1660)
Painter of the baroque
*****
Angelica Kauffmann
(1741-1807)
Painter of the Goethe epoche
(Sturm und Drang)
*****
Marie-Guillemine Benoist
(1768-1826)
Painter of portraits
during the French Revolution
*****
