Take This Quiz to See How Well You Know Famous Women Artists

Photograph of Georgia O’Keeffe by Alfred Stieglitz. Photo: Public Domain.

Surprisingly, when you search for art and quotes by famous artists your results are predominantly about male artists. We strive to balance the scales. Enjoy reading a combination of well-known and lesser-known facts about famous women artists. Can you guess which women artists the facts are attributed to? To make it more interesting two of the artists are members of Manhattan Arts International who have achieved fame in their own right. The names of all artists are provided at the end with links to articles about them that appear on this website.

This article is part of our series of articles and interviews about women artists in coordination with  Our “HerStory” Exhibitions. The purpose of this quiz is to raise your awareness and education about famous women artists and to inspire you to spend time researching and reading more about them. Have fun!

Banner Image: Art by Georgia O’Keeffe, Frida Kahlo and Sonia Delaunay

Facts About Famous Women Artists

#1. This trailblazer honored the craft tradition in women’s art and also paid homage to women artists of the past. In the mid 1980s she painted portraits of Frida Kahlo on top of her old self-portrait paintings

#2. Born in India and educated in France, this late bloomer was 48 years old when she took up photography. Although her career spanned only eleven years she is considered one of the most significant photographers of the 19th century.

#3. She aligned herself with activists and became a member of the Fight Censorship Group, a feminist anti-censorship collective. In 2010, the last year of her life, she used her art to speak up for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) equality.

 

Frida Kahlo. “The Two Fridas”, 1939, oil on canvas, 5’9″ x 5’9″. Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City. Photo: Fair Use, en.wikipedia.org

#4. This artist’s many international exhibitions include Art Basel Hong Kong. She learned to fly at the age of 25 and became a commercial pilot, flight engineer, and Naval officer. While working at the Pentagon she began to study figure drawing and medical anatomy before becoming a renowned pastel painter and author.

#5. A famous Feminist, her installation at the Brooklyn Museum is iconic. Time magazine chose her as one of the top 100 most influential people in the world in 2018.

#6. Born in Manhattan, the daughter of a New York Supreme Court Judge, she is an acclaimed Abstract Expressionist and one of the leading Color Field painters. During her active career that spanned nearly six decades she went through a variety of influential stylistic changes.

#7. Her reputation is based on an extensive series of paintings and prints on the theme of the mother and child. She was a close friend of Edgar Degas, and exhibited with the Impressionists. She personified the “New Woman”, a term coined by writer Charles Reade in his novel “A Woman Hater”.

A Kiss for Baby Anne by Mary Cassatt. Photo: Public Domain.

#8. She was the first living female artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Louvre in 1964. Along with her husband she co-founded the Orphism art movement, known for its use of strong colors and geometric shapes.

#9. This sculptor has exhibited in three museums, won awards from the National Sculpture Society, several Manhattan Arts International top awards, and is the founder of  an art atelier. Collectors of her work span the globe.

#10. Born in 1871, this Canadian artist and writer was inspired by the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. In 1927 she met members of the Group of Seven, at that time Canada’s most recognized modern painters.

#11. Her artwork was inspired by the people, poetry, and music she was exposed to in her childhood and also reflected the racism, sexism, and segregation she faced. Her celebrated series of paintings called “American People”, portrayed the civil rights movement from a female perspective.

#12. She was an English-born Mexican artist, surrealist painter, and novelist, and one of the last surviving participants in the Surrealist movement of the 1930’s. She was invited to show her work in an international exhibition of Surrealism, where she was the only female English professional painter.

Harriet Powers, Bible quilt, mixed media, 1886. Photo: Public Domain

#13. A Greek-American sculptor and visual artist, born in Louisiana, she is known for her unusual blend of organic imagery. Her materials of choice included wax, poured latex, gold leaf, gesso, plaster, cotton, and chicken wire. In the 1970’s she ran a series of controversial advertisements in Artforum magazine.

#14. This Japanese contemporary artist works in sculpture and installation, painting, performance, film, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. She came to public attention in the 1960’s when she organized a series of happenings in New York in which naked participants were painted with brightly colored polka dots.

#15: By exposing intimate aspects of herself, her paintings were a type of catharsis, releasing sorrow and pain associated with her physical trauma. Kahlo used her art as a way to bare her pain and tragedy instead of hiding her disability shamefully.

#16. She was an American folk artist and quilter born into slavery in rural northeast Georgia. Powers used traditional appliqué techniques to make quilts that expressed local legends, Bible stories, and astronomical events.

  Faith Ringgold, American People Series #20: Die, (1967). Oil on canvas, two panels, 72 × 144″. Photo: Fair Use en.wikipedia.org

The Answers

#1. Miriam Schapiro

#2. Julia Margaret Cameron

#3. Louise Bourgeois

#4. Barbara Rachko

#5. Judy Chicago

#6. Helen Frankenthaler

#7. Mary Cassatt

#8. Sonia Delaunay

#9. Bren Sibilsky

#10. Emily Carr

#11. Faith Ringgold

#12. Leonora Carrington

#13. Lynda Benglis

#14. Yayoi Kusama

#15. Frida Kahlo

#16 Harriet Powers

Ready to take another quiz?
Visit this page: Artyfacts About Famous Artists.

Also Learn about Manhattan Arts International “HerStory” Exhibitions.