These women painters inaugurated a new chapter in human history

Sebastian Smee | Yahoo | 29th August 2025

Male artists have long tackled big themes in philosophy and history. Until the mid-20th century, though, most female artists painted subjects drawn from the domestic domain. The pressures that flowed from this – the “studio” being a kitchen table – give a “freshness” to their art. A small painting of a brown teapot, for example, probably painted after the breakfast things were cleared up, is “gorgeous … quiet works emerging from private rooms [can] be as charged with significance as those depicting war”.