Virtual Art Seminar

Renaissance & Baroque Women Artists

Discover Exceptional Women who Challenged Conventions, Defied Expectations and Left their Mark on Art History

Join an intimate community for six lively discussions on the remarkable women of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque eras.

Each class will shed light on a different female painter, from Sofonisba Anguissola, Artemisia Gentileschi, Fede Galizia, Elisabetta Sirani, and more. All painted subjects that were traditionally the preserve of male artists. We'll learn how each artist navigated a male-dominated art world, competed with their male contemporaries to receive commissions from illustrious patrons, including aristocrats, cardinals, popes, and monarchs, and rose to international fame. With special attention to their self-portraits, religious and historical themes, we will observe how they portrayed themselves and their female subjects as ingenious, intrepid and heroic.

Inspired by the ongoing exhibition, Artemisia at The National Gallery, London (2020-21), this series integrates cutting-edge research and scholarship. No background in art necessary. All that's required is a curious mind. Sessions are led by Lauren Jimerson, PhD.

"I will show Your Illustrious Lordship what a woman can do" - Artemisia Gentileschi

From Milan to Rome, Florence, Bologna, Venice, Milan and Naples, learn about women's lives and the remarkable Italian women artists of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Discover women who rose to fame in a male dominated art world, including:

Sofonisba Anguissola, Artemisia Gentileschi, Fede Galizia, Elisabetta Sirani, and more...

Study their paintings of heroines from history and the Bible, still lifes, self portraits, and see the world through their eyes.

Next Sessions:

Saturdays at 10:30 am, February 27-April 3

Discover Renaissance Women Artists

Week 1: In Search of a Painting

When I first saw a reproduction of Marie Vassilieff’s Homme et Femme, a double-sided depiction of male and female Cubist nudes, I was determined to find the painting. This was the start of a three-year quest all over France and beyond. As we retrace my journey, we will study this lesser-known artist and the significance of her work. We will uncover her Cubist paintings, unknown to the public, which I found in private collections. We will learn what a woman artist risked a century ago by painting male nudes and challenging gender norms.
Week 5: Painting Pleasure

In her representations of the nude, Émilie Charmy explored female sexuality in paint. Often, she used her own body in lieu of a model’s creating daring self-portraits. Painting the female nude in a sensual manner with opulent brushwork and vivid color, she captured both a visual and tactile representation of the body. We will learn why Charmy hid some of her work from the public and where it can be found today. We will examine Charmy’s paintings up close and discover how a woman painted pleasure one century ago.
Week 4: The Model's Gaze

As a former model, Valadon was acutely aware of the gaze – how the body is typically displayed as an object for male viewers – but she was also perceptive to the ways class and gender shape identity and subjectivity. From her unique and embodied vantage point, which I call the model’s gaze, Valadon reclaimed woman as subject. She painted female bodies that do not conform to standard ideals of beauty. She then turned the model’s gaze on herself. Toward the end of her career, she captured her aging body with a truthful and unflattering eye in the first known old-age nude self-portrait. We will look at Valadon’s female nudes and nude self-portraits and discuss the poignant ways in which they resonate with gender theory formulated over half a century later.
Week 2: The Androgynous Doll

In 1915, Marie Vassilieff pioneered a new kind of art form – the portrait doll. They represented various personalities of interwar Paris – Picasso, Matisse, Josephine Baker, and the artist herself. Vassilieff’s dolls were not merely craft – she considered her creations as works of art. As we examine her dolls, we will consider their role as objets d’art and the breakdown of artistic hierarchies they imply. We will learn about the Dada movement and the women involved. We will discuss the signification of the doll itself – its traditional link with femininity and discover the ways in which Vassilieff upends its meaning.
Week 3: Defying Gender

Travel back in time to Suzanne Valadon’s world in Montmartre. A model turned artist, Valadon devoted her career to the subject she knew best – the nude. As a lower-class woman and single mother, she must have assumed that she had nothing to lose. She audaciously exhibited male nudes at an important art Salon in Paris. Shocked, one critic called her an “old slut,” but that didn’t deter her. We will examine Valadon’s male nudes in paintings and in drawings. We will see how this artist became an active agent of her own sexuality and depicted the male body as shaped by her own desires.
Week 4: Artists of the Harlem Renaissance

Matisse first visited New York in 1930 on route to Tahiti. There, he discovered a flourishing Renaissance that championed modern black urban culture. He met intellectuals, musicians and artists involved in the Harlem Renaissance movement, such as Du Bois and Alain Locke, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and James Van der Dee. Upon his return to France, he blended the influence of modern jazz rhythms that he heard in New York with the colors and forms that he saw in nature of the island of Tahiti. We will observe how the Harlem Renaissance influenced Matisse's work and learn about the Harlem Renaissance artists, William Henry Johnson and Jacob Lawrence as well.
Week 2: Manet's Laure into the Spotlight

With "Olympia" (1863), Manet transfigured the nude in a manner which reflected contemporary anxieties and ambiguities of gender and class, all the while refuting the academic conventions for the representation of the idealized nude. But while critics and scholars focused on the white female nude displayed prominently in the foreground, the black maidservant, Laure, largely escaped attention. We will learn about Denise Murrell’s groundbreaking research which has recently shed light on Olympia’s overshadowed counterpart, and learn how race, as much as gender and class, underpins modernity.
Week 5: Remaking History

Black artists are remaking art history. We will study artists of color from the 1970s to the present who have reinterpreted canonical works from the past, transfigured the genre of the nude, or transformed the subject of history painting, all the while placing the black figure in the spotlight. We will consider how artists such as Romare Bearden are critical to the history of modern painting. We will discuss how contemporary artists, including Faith Ringgold, Kehinde Wiley, Elizabeth Colomba and Mickalene Thomas, critically engage with issues of gender and race, as they deconstruct and expand the hallowed genres of portraiture and the nude while featuring the black female subject. We will see how race has become one of the most dominant and vital subjects for artists today.
Week 1: A Face with a Name

An emancipated slave from Guadeloupe, Madeleine appeared in a portrait by Marie-Guillemine Benoist. She was a domestic servant in the home of the artist's brother-in-law, a naval officer who had brought her back from the Antilles in the Caribbean. Her portrait was shown in the Paris Salon of 1800, but her identity was not revealed at the time and was subsequently forgotten. Thanks to recent archival research carried out by Marianne Levy, her first name was discovered. We will study this painting and its myriad interpretations.
Week 3: From Circus to Stage

We will learn about the growing black community that transformed Paris with their cultural traditions, such as dance and jazz. We will discover the mixed-race Prussian circus star Miss La La (Olga), the African-American performer Josephine Baker and the Guadeloupean dancer and model Adrienne Fidelin. We will study their representations in works by Degas, Man Ray, and Picasso as we consider the multifaceted significance of the black figure in cultural life of early 20th century France.
Week 2: Manet's Laure Into the Spotlight

With "Olympia" (1863), Manet transfigured the nude in a manner which reflected contemporary anxieties and ambiguities of gender and class, all the while refuting the academic conventions for the representation of the idealized nude. But while critics and scholars focused on the white female nude displayed prominently in the foreground, the black maidservant, Laure, largely escaped attention. We will learn about the groundbreaking research which has recently shed light on Olympia’s overshadowed counterpart, and learn how race, as much as gender and class, underpins modernity.
Week 5: Black Women Artists Today

In recent decades, a growing number of black women have taken control of their own image. Mickalene Thomas, Elizabeth Colomba, Renée Cox, Awol Erizku, Lorraine O’Grady, Faith Ringgold, Carrie Mae Weems, among others, critically engage with issues of gender and race, as they deconstruct and expand the hallowed genre of the nude and the black female subject. We will exmaine a highly discerning selection of recent work by both established and emerging artists from various backgrounds. We will see how race has become one of the most dominant and vital subjects for artists today.
Week 1: A Face with a Name

An emancipated slave from Guadeloupe, Madeleine appeared in a portrait by Marie-Guillemine Benoist. She was a domestic servant in the home of the artist's brother-in-law, a naval officer who had brought her back from the Antilles in the Caribbean. Her portrait was shown in the Paris Salon of 1800, but her identity was not revealed at the time and was subsequently forgotten. Thanks to recent archival research, her first name was discovered. We will study this painting and its myriad interpretations.
Week 3: From Circus to Stage

We will learn about the growing black community that transformed Paris with their cultural traditions, such as dance and jazz. We will discover the mixed-race Prussian circus star, Miss La La, and African-American Josephine Baker, among others, as we study their representations in works by Modern artists. We will examine the multifaceted significance of the black figure in cultural life of early 20th century France.
Week 4: Artists of the Harlem Renaissance

Matisse first visited New York in 1930 on route to Tahiti. There, he discovered a flourishing Renaissance that championed modern black urban culture. He met intellectuals, musicians and artists involved in the Harlem Renaissance movement, such as Du Bois and Alain Locke, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and James Van der Dee. Upon his return to France, he blended the influence of modern jazz rhythms that he heard in New York with the colors and forms that he saw in nature of the island of Tahiti. We will observe how the Harlem Renaissance influenced Matisse's work and learn about the Harlem Renaissance artists, William Henry Johnson and Romare Bearden as well.
Week 1: In Search of a Painting

When I first saw a reproduction of Marie Vassilieff’s Homme et Femme, a double-sided depiction of male and female Cubist nudes, I was determined to find the painting. This was the start of a three-year quest all over France and beyond. As we retrace my journey, we will study this lesser-known artist and the significance of her work. We will uncover her Cubist paintings, unknown to the public, which I found in private collections. We will learn what a woman artist risked a century ago by painting male nudes and challenging gender norms.
Week 5: Painting Pleasure

In her representations of the nude, Émilie Charmy explored female sexuality in paint. Often, she used her own body in lieu of a model’s creating daring self-portraits. Painting the female nude in a sensual manner with opulent brushwork and vivid color, she captured both a visual and tactile representation of the body. We will learn why Charmy hid some of her work from the public and where it can be found today. We will examine Charmy’s paintings up close and discover how a woman painted pleasure one century ago.
Week 2: The Androgynous Doll

In 1915, Marie Vassilieff pioneered a new kind of art form – the portrait doll. They represented various personalities of interwar Paris – Picasso, Matisse, Josephine Baker, and the artist herself. Vassilieff’s dolls were not merely craft – she considered her creations as works of art. As we examine her dolls, we will consider their role as objets d’art and the breakdown of artistic hierarchies they imply. We will learn about the Dada movement and the women involved. We will discuss the signification of the doll itself – its traditional link with femininity and discover the ways in which Vassilieff upends its meaning.
Week 4: The Model's Gaze

As a former model, Valadon was acutely aware of the gaze – how the body is typically displayed as an object for male viewers – but she was also perceptive to the ways class and gender shape identity and subjectivity. From her unique and embodied vantage point, which I call the model’s gaze, Valadon reclaimed woman as subject. She painted female bodies that do not conform to standard ideals of beauty. She then turned the model’s gaze on herself. Toward the end of her career, she captured her aging body with a truthful and unflattering eye in the first known old-age nude self-portrait. We will look at Valadon’s female nudes and nude self-portraits and discuss the poignant ways in which they resonate with gender theory formulated over half a century later.
Week 3: Defying Gender

Travel back in time to Suzanne Valadon’s world in Montmartre. A model turned artist, Valadon devoted her career to the subject she knew best – the nude. As a lower-class woman and single mother, she must have assumed that she had nothing to lose. She audaciously exhibited male nudes at an important art Salon in Paris. Shocked, one critic called her an “old slut,” but that didn’t deter her. We will examine Valadon’s male nudes in paintings and in drawings. We will see how this artist became an active agent of her own sexuality and depicted the male body as shaped by her own desires.
Week 3: Defying Gender

Travel back in time to Suzanne Valadon’s world in Montmartre. A model turned artist, Valadon devoted her career to the subject she knew best – the nude. As a lower-class woman and single mother, she must have assumed that she had nothing to lose. She audaciously exhibited male nudes at an important art Salon in Paris. Shocked, one critic called her an “old slut,” but that didn’t deter her. We will examine Valadon’s male nudes in paintings and in drawings. We will see how this artist became an active agent of her own sexuality and depicted the male body as shaped by her own desires.
Week 4: The Model's Gaze

As a former model, Valadon was acutely aware of the gaze – how the body is typically displayed as an object for male viewers – but she was also perceptive to the ways class and gender shape identity and subjectivity. From her unique and embodied vantage point, which I call the model’s gaze, Valadon reclaimed woman as subject. She painted female bodies that do not conform to standard ideals of beauty. She then turned the model’s gaze on herself. Toward the end of her career, she captured her aging body with a truthful and unflattering eye in the first known old-age nude self-portrait. We will look at Valadon’s female nudes and nude self-portraits and discuss the poignant ways in which they resonate with gender theory formulated over half a century later.
Week 5: Painting Pleasure

In her representations of the nude, Émilie Charmy explored female sexuality in paint. Often, she used her own body in lieu of a model’s creating daring self-portraits. Painting the female nude in a sensual manner with opulent brushwork and vivid color, she captured both a visual and tactile representation of the body. We will learn why Charmy hid some of her work from the public and where it can be found today. We will examine Charmy’s paintings up close and discover how a woman painted pleasure one century ago.
Week 1: In Search of a Painting

When I first saw a reproduction of Marie Vassilieff’s Homme et Femme, a double-sided depiction of male and female Cubist nudes, I was determined to find the painting. This was the start of a three-year quest all over France and beyond. As we retrace my journey, we will study this lesser-known artist and the significance of her work. We will uncover her Cubist paintings, unknown to the public, which I found in private collections. We will learn what a woman artist risked a century ago by painting male nudes and challenging gender norms.
Week 2: The Androgynous Doll

In 1915, Marie Vassilieff pioneered a new kind of art form – the portrait doll. They represented various personalities of interwar Paris – Picasso, Matisse, Josephine Baker, and the artist herself. Vassilieff’s dolls were not merely craft – she considered her creations as works of art. As we examine her dolls, we will consider their role as objets d’art and the breakdown of artistic hierarchies they imply. We will learn about the Dada movement and the women involved. We will discuss the signification of the doll itself – its traditional link with femininity and discover the ways in which Vassilieff upends its meaning.
Jewish Women Cubists

We will examine three female Cubists: Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979), Alice Halicka (1894-1975) and Marie Vorobieff (Marevna) (1892-1984). Each artist forged new approaches within the Cubism. Inspired by color theory, Delaunay co-founded the Orphism art movement with her husband, Robert Delaunay, and was one of the first European artists to pursue abstraction. Combining elements of cubism with pointillism, Marevna created a style which she called "Dimensionalim." Halicka explored diverse styles, including her own form of abstract cubism during the war. During World War II, she wrote her memoir Hier, souvenirs (1946) in which she articulated her methodologies and recounted her experience as a woman artist in Paris.
Modern Jewish Sculptors - Lipchitz, Orloff, and Zadkine"

We will focus on an international group of Jewish artists in Paris who innovated sculpture at the beginning of the twentieth century. We will examine the work of Jacques Lipchitz (1891-1973), Chana Orloff (1888-1968), and Ossip Zadkine (1890-1967). We will pay a virtual visit to the Musée Zadkine, the artist's former studio near the Jardin du Luxembourg. We will also learn about the abstract painter and sculptor, Otto Freundlich. His work was labeled "degenerate" by the Nazis. When he realized that the Nazis had destroyed his work, he faithfully recreated it, hoping to solidify his legacy.
Jewish Collectors, Dealers and Intellectuals"

At the turn of the twentieth century, the art world witnessed sweeping changes. The antiquated system of juried Salons no longer held sway as a new gallery system emerged and transformed the ways in which artists exhibited and sold their work. We will examine Jewish art dealers, collectors and intellectuals who played a formative role in this radical reshaping of the world of art, including Paul and Léonce Rosenberg, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, and Berthe Weill. We will also discuss the prominent writer and collector, Gertrude Stein, and learn how she promoted modern artists.
Ecole de Paris & Montparnasse

The "Ecole de Paris" was a vibrant, international artistic community in Montparnasse. Artists began to settle in this Parisian neighborhood in the nineteenth century, drawn by the tranquility of its natural surroundings and open space. By the turn of the twentieth century, the artist population in Montparnasse surpassed that of Montmartre, becoming a nexus of modern art production and cultural exchange. We will visit the neighborhood virtually to see where artists once congregated. We will study Jewish artists who played an active role in Montparnasse, including Marc Chagall, Otto Freundlich, Moïse Kisling, Jules Pascin and Chaim Soutine, all the while uncovering their myriad modern aesthetics.
Amedeo Modigliani and Chaïm Soutine

Modigliani's Italian-Sephardic background helped to shape a multivalent artistic identity, and led him to seek out multicultural forms in his quest to innovate the classical subjects of portraiture and the nude. We will discover the myriad sources that influenced his work, from African and Egyptian to ancient Cycladic, Sumerian, Khmer, and Greek art. We will examine the paintings and sculpture which he produced during his short but prolific career. Chaïm Soutine painted the mundane world around him - pastry cooks, windy landscapes, and slabs of rotten beef, in a powerfully expressive manner with copious applications of paint. He was virtually unknown until he caught the eye of collectors, Paul Guillaume and Albert Barnes.
Week 1: A Face with a Name

An emancipated slave from Guadeloupe, Madeleine appeared in a portrait by Marie-Guillemine Benoist. She was a domestic servant in the home of the artist's brother-in-law, a naval officer who had brought her back from the Antilles in the Caribbean. Her portrait was shown in the Paris Salon of 1800, but her identity was not revealed at the time and was subsequently forgotten. Thanks to recent archival research carried out by Marianne Levy, her first name was discovered. We will study this painting and its myriad interpretations.
Week 2: Manet's Laure into the Spotlight

With "Olympia" (1863), Manet transfigured the nude in a manner which reflected contemporary anxieties and ambiguities of gender and class, all the while refuting the academic conventions for the representation of the idealized nude. But while critics and scholars focused on the white female nude displayed prominently in the foreground, the black maidservant, Laure, largely escaped attention. We will learn about Denise Murrell’s groundbreaking research which has recently shed light on Olympia’s overshadowed counterpart, and learn how race, as much as gender and class, underpins modernity.
Week 3: From Circus to Stage

We will learn about the growing black community that transformed Paris with their cultural traditions, such as dance and jazz. We will discover the mixed-race Prussian circus star Miss La La (Olga), the African-American performer Josephine Baker and the Guadeloupean dancer and model Adrienne Fidelin. We will study their representations in works by Degas, Man Ray, and Picasso as we consider the multifaceted significance of the black figure in cultural life of early 20th century France.
Week 5: Remaking History

Black artists are remaking art history. We will study artists of color from the 1970s to the present who have reinterpreted canonical works from the past, transfigured the genre of the nude, or transformed the subject of history painting, all the while placing the black figure in the spotlight. We will consider how artists such as Romare Bearden are critical to the history of modern painting. We will discuss how contemporary artists, including Faith Ringgold, Kehinde Wiley, Elizabeth Colomba and Mickalene Thomas, critically engage with issues of gender and race, as they deconstruct and expand the hallowed genres of portraiture and the nude while featuring the black female subject. We will see how race has become one of the most dominant and vital subjects for artists today.
Week 4: Artists of the Harlem Renaissance

Matisse first visited New York in 1930 on route to Tahiti. There, he discovered a flourishing Renaissance that championed modern black urban culture. He met intellectuals, musicians and artists involved in the Harlem Renaissance movement, such as Du Bois and Alain Locke, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and James Van der Dee. Upon his return to France, he blended the influence of modern jazz rhythms that he heard in New York with the colors and forms that he saw in nature of the island of Tahiti. We will observe how the Harlem Renaissance influenced Matisse's work and learn about the Harlem Renaissance artists, William Henry Johnson and Jacob Lawrence as well.
Week 1: A Face with a Name

An emancipated slave from Guadeloupe, Madeleine appeared in a portrait by Marie-Guillemine Benoist. She was a domestic servant in the home of the artist's brother-in-law, a naval officer who had brought her back from the Antilles in the Caribbean. Her portrait was shown in the Paris Salon of 1800, but her identity was not revealed at the time and was subsequently forgotten. Thanks to recent archival research carried out by Marianne Levy, her first name was discovered. We will study this painting and its myriad interpretations.
Week 3: From Circus to Stage

We will learn about the growing black community that transformed Paris with their cultural traditions, such as dance and jazz. We will discover the mixed-race Prussian circus star, Miss La La (Olga), and African-American performer Josephine Baker, the choreographer and anthropologist Katherine Dunham, and the Guadeloupean model Adrienne Fidelin. We will study their representations in works by Modern artists: Degas, Matisse, Man Ray, and Picasso. We will examine the multifaceted significance of the black figure in cultural life of early 20th century France.
Week 2: Manet's Laure into the Spotlight

With "Olympia" (1863), Manet transfigured the nude in a manner which reflected contemporary anxieties and ambiguities of gender and class, all the while refuting the academic conventions for the representation of the idealized nude. But while critics and scholars focused on the white female nude displayed prominently in the foreground, the black maidservant, Laure, largely escaped attention. We will learn about Denise Murrell’s groundbreaking research which has recently shed light on Olympia’s overshadowed counterpart, and learn how race, as much as gender and class, underpins modernity.
Week 4: Remaking History

Black artists are remaking art history. We will study artists of color from the Harlem Renaissance to the present who have reinterpreted canonical works from the past, transfigured the genre of the nude, or transformed the subject of history painting, all the while placing the black figure in the spotlight. We will consider how artists such as Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden are critical to the history of modern painting. We will discuss how contemporary artists, including Faith Ringgold, Kehinde Wiley, Elizabeth Colomba and Mickalene Thomas, critically engage with issues of gender and race, as they deconstruct and expand the hallowed genres of portraiture and the nude and feature the black female subject. We will see how race has become one of the most dominant and vital subjects for artists today.
Amedeo Modigliani & Chaïm Soutine

Modigliani's Italian-Sephardic background helped to shape a multivalent artistic identity, and led him to seek out multicultural forms in his quest to innovate the classical subjects of portraiture and the nude. We will discover the myriad sources that influenced his work, from African and Egyptian to ancient Cycladic, Sumerian, Khmer, and Greek art. We will examine the paintings and sculpture which he produced during his short but prolific career. Chaïm Soutine painted the mundane world around him - pastry cooks, windy landscapes, and slabs of rotten beef, in a powerfully expressive manner with copious applications of paint. He was virtually unknown until he caught the eye of collectors, Paul Guillaume and Albert Barnes.
Ecole de Paris & Montparnasse

The "Ecole de Paris" was a vibrant, international artistic community in Montparnasse. Artists began to settle in this Parisian neighborhood in the nineteenth century, drawn by the tranquility of its natural surroundings and open space. By the turn of the twentieth century, the artist population in Montparnasse surpassed that of Montmartre, becoming a nexus of modern art production and cultural exchange. We will visit the neighborhood virtually to see where artists once congregated. We will study Jewish artists who played an active role in Montparnasse, including Marc Chagall, Otto Freundlich, Moïse Kisling, Jules Pascin and Chaim Soutine, all the while uncovering their myriad modern aesthetics.
Jewish Collectors, Dealers and Intellectuals"

At the turn of the twentieth century, the art world witnessed sweeping changes. The antiquated system of juried Salons no longer held sway as a new gallery system emerged and transformed the ways in which artists exhibited and sold their work. We will examine Jewish art dealers, collectors and intellectuals who played a formative role in this radical reshaping of the world of art, including Paul and Léonce Rosenberg, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, and Berthe Weill. We will also discuss the prominent writer and collector, Gertrude Stein, and learn how she promoted modern artists.
Modern Jewish Sculptors - Lipchitz, Orloff and Zadkine."

We will focus on an international group of Jewish artists in Paris who innovated sculpture at the beginning of the twentieth century. We will examine the work of Jacques Lipchitz (1891-1973), Chana Orloff (1888-1968), and Ossip Zadkine (1890-1967). We will pay a virtual visit to the Musée Zadkine, the artist's former studio near the Jardin du Luxembourg. We will also learn about the abstract painter and sculptor, Otto Freundlich. His work was labeled "degenerate" by the Nazis. When he realized that the Nazis had destroyed his work, he faithfully recreated it, hoping to solidify his legacy.
Jewish Women Cubists

We will examine three female Cubists: Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979), Alice Halicka (1894-1975) and Marie Vorobieff (Marevna) (1892-1984). Each artist forged new approaches within the Cubism. Inspired by color theory, Delaunay co-founded the Orphism art movement with her husband, Robert Delaunay, and was one of the first European artists to pursue abstraction. Combining elements of cubism with pointillism, Marevna created a style which she called "Dimensionalim." Halicka explored diverse styles, including her own form of abstract cubism during the war. During World War II, she wrote her memoir Hier, souvenirs (1946) in which she articulated her methodologies and recounted her experience as a woman artist in Paris.
Week 4: Remaking History

Black artists are remaking art history. We will study artists of color from the Harlem Renaissance to the present who have reinterpreted canonical works from the past, transfigured the genre of the nude, or transformed the subject of history painting, all the while placing the black figure in the spotlight. We will consider how artists such as Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden are critical to the history of modern painting. We will discuss how contemporary artists, including Faith Ringgold, Kehinde Wiley, Elizabeth Colomba and Mickalene Thomas, critically engage with issues of gender and race, as they deconstruct and expand the hallowed genres of portraiture and the nude and feature the black female subject. We will see how race has become one of the most dominant and vital subjects for artists today.
Week 3: From Circus to Stage

We will learn about the growing black community that transformed Paris with their cultural traditions, such as dance and jazz. We will discover the mixed-race Prussian circus star, Miss La La (Olga), and African-American performer Josephine Baker, the choreographer and anthropologist Katherine Dunham, and the Guadeloupean model Adrienne Fidelin. We will study their representations in works by Modern artists: Degas, Matisse, Man Ray, and Picasso. We will examine the multifaceted significance of the black figure in cultural life of early 20th century France.
Week 1: A Face with a Name

An emancipated slave from Guadeloupe, Madeleine appeared in a portrait by Marie-Guillemine Benoist. She was a domestic servant in the home of the artist's brother-in-law, a naval officer who had brought her back from the Antilles in the Caribbean. Her portrait was shown in the Paris Salon of 1800, but her identity was not revealed at the time and was subsequently forgotten. Thanks to recent archival research carried out by Marianne Levy, her first name was discovered. We will study this painting and its myriad interpretations.
Week 2: Manet's Laure into the Spotlight

With "Olympia" (1863), Manet transfigured the nude in a manner which reflected contemporary anxieties and ambiguities of gender and class, all the while refuting the academic conventions for the representation of the idealized nude. But while critics and scholars focused on the white female nude displayed prominently in the foreground, the black maidservant, Laure, largely escaped attention. We will learn about Denise Murrell’s groundbreaking research which has recently shed light on Olympia’s overshadowed counterpart, and learn how race, as much as gender and class, underpins modernity.
Modern Jewish Sculptors - Lipchitz, Orloff and Zadkine"

We will focus on an international group of Jewish artists in Paris who innovated sculpture at the beginning of the twentieth century. We will examine the work of Jacques Lipchitz (1891-1973), Chana Orloff (1888-1968), and Ossip Zadkine (1890-1967). We will pay a virtual visit to the Musée Zadkine, the artist's former studio near the Jardin du Luxembourg. We will also learn about the abstract painter and sculptor, Otto Freundlich. His work was labeled "degenerate" by the Nazis. When he realized that the Nazis had destroyed his work, he faithfully recreated it, hoping to solidify his legacy.
Jewish Women Cubists

We will examine three female Cubists: Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979), Alice Halicka (1894-1975) and Marie Vorobieff (Marevna) (1892-1984). Each artist forged new approaches within the Cubism. Inspired by color theory, Delaunay co-founded the Orphism art movement with her husband, Robert Delaunay, and was one of the first European artists to pursue abstraction. Combining elements of cubism with pointillism, Marevna created a style which she called "Dimensionalim." Halicka explored diverse styles, including her own form of abstract cubism during the war. During World War II, she wrote her memoir Hier, souvenirs (1946) in which she articulated her methodologies and recounted her experience as a woman artist in Paris.
Ecole de Paris & Montparnasse

The "Ecole de Paris" was a vibrant, international artistic community in Montparnasse. Artists began to settle in this Parisian neighborhood in the nineteenth century, drawn by the tranquility of its natural surroundings and open space. By the turn of the twentieth century, the artist population in Montparnasse surpassed that of Montmartre, becoming a nexus of modern art production and cultural exchange. We will visit the neighborhood virtually to see where artists once congregated. We will study Jewish artists who played an active role in Montparnasse, including Marc Chagall, Otto Freundlich, Moïse Kisling, Jules Pascin and Chaim Soutine, all the while uncovering their myriad modern aesthetics.
Jewish Collectors, Dealers and Intellectuals "

At the turn of the twentieth century, the art world witnessed sweeping changes. The antiquated system of juried Salons no longer held sway as a new gallery system emerged and transformed the ways in which artists exhibited and sold their work. We will examine Jewish art dealers, collectors and intellectuals who played a formative role in this radical reshaping of the world of art, including Paul and Léonce Rosenberg, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, and Berthe Weill. We will also discuss the prominent writer and collector, Gertrude Stein, and learn how she promoted modern artists.
Amedeo Modigliani & Chaïm Soutine

Modigliani's Italian-Sephardic background helped to shape a multivalent artistic identity, and led him to seek out multicultural forms in his quest to innovate the classical subjects of portraiture and the nude. We will discover the myriad sources that influenced his work, from African and Egyptian to ancient Cycladic, Sumerian, Khmer, and Greek art. We will examine the paintings and sculpture which he produced during his short but prolific career. Chaïm Soutine painted the mundane world around him - pastry cooks, windy landscapes, and slabs of rotten beef, in a powerfully expressive manner with copious applications of paint. He was virtually unknown until he caught the eye of collectors, Paul Guillaume and Albert Barnes.
Week 5: Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–c.1656) attained unprecedented fame and international success in the 17th century. She was the first woman to gain membership into the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence in 1616, and around 1639, she lived and worked in the court of Charles I of England. As stated by curators of the Artemisia exhibition at the National Gallery, "Artemisia painted subjects that were traditionally the preserve of male artists and for the male gaze; transforming meek maidservants into courageous conspirators and victims into survivors."
Week 2: Sofonisba Anguissola

We'll trace the life and oeuvre of Sofonisba Anguissola (c.1532–1625) who was an apprentice to Michelangelo and later a court painter to King Philip II of Spain. She is argued to be the first woman artist to attain international fame.
Week 4: Lavinia Fontana

Lavinia Fontana (1552–1614) achieved professional success, not in court or convent as her female predecessors had done, but in direct competition with male artists in her own city of Bologna. She was prolific and she painted portraits, altarpieces, private devotional works and mytholgoical paintings. Around 150 of her paintings survive today. The mother of 11 children, she supported her entire family financially, including her husband.
Week 3: Fede Galizia and Elisabetta Sirani

Fede Galizia (c.1578– c.1630) was a successful still life painter when the subject itself was in its nascence, but her most compelling painting is a supposed self portrait in the guise of Judith holding the head of Holofernes. Elisabetta Sirani (1638 –1665) lived and worked in Bologna where she established a successful studio and became the breadwinner of the family. She was prolific and produced over 200 paintings during her short life.
Week One: Women, Art and Society during the Italian Renaissance"

We'll take a look at the world in which these artists were born into and the obstacles they faced, with a focus on women's lives in 16th century Florence.
Week 6: Judith and Holofernes

Judith was a beautiful Jewish widow who saved her people by beheading the Assyrian general, Holofernes. This subject, depicted countless times by male artists during the Renassance and Baroque periods, became a popular subject for women artists as well. However, the story carried a separate meaning for artists and viewers of different gender. We will study numerous examples of this subject to see how women artists brought this decaptiation scene to life and spotlighted Judith as a courageous heroine.
Week 5: Painting Pleasure

In her representations of the nude, Émilie Charmy explored female sexuality in paint. Often, she used her own body in lieu of a model’s creating daring self-portraits. Painting the female nude in a sensual manner with opulent brushwork and vivid color, she captured both a visual and tactile representation of the body. We will learn why Charmy hid some of her work from the public and where it can be found today. We will examine Charmy’s paintings up close and discover how a woman painted pleasure one century ago.
Week 2: The Androgynous Doll

In 1915, Marie Vassilieff pioneered a new kind of art form – the portrait doll. They represented various personalities of interwar Paris – Picasso, Matisse, Josephine Baker, and the artist herself. Vassilieff’s dolls were not merely craft – she considered her creations as works of art. As we examine her dolls, we will consider their role as objets d’art and the breakdown of artistic hierarchies they imply. We will learn about the Dada movement and the women involved. We will discuss the signification of the doll itself – its traditional link with femininity and discover the ways in which Vassilieff upends its meaning.
Week 1: In Search of a Painting

When I first saw a reproduction of Marie Vassilieff’s Homme et Femme, a double-sided depiction of male and female Cubist nudes, I was determined to find the painting. This was the start of a three-year quest all over France and beyond. As we retrace my journey, we will study this lesser-known artist and the significance of her work. We will uncover her Cubist paintings, unknown to the public, which I found in private collections. We will learn what a woman artist risked a century ago by painting male nudes and challenging gender norms.
Week 4: The Model's Gaze

As a former model, Valadon was acutely aware of the gaze – how the body is typically displayed as an object for male viewers – but she was also perceptive to the ways class and gender shape identity and subjectivity. From her unique and embodied vantage point, which I call the model’s gaze, Valadon reclaimed woman as subject. She painted female bodies that do not conform to standard ideals of beauty. She then turned the model’s gaze on herself. Toward the end of her career, she captured her aging body with a truthful and unflattering eye in the first known old-age nude self-portrait. We will look at Valadon’s female nudes and nude self-portraits and discuss the poignant ways in which they resonate with gender theory formulated over half a century later.
Week 3: Defying Gender

Travel back in time to Suzanne Valadon’s world in Montmartre. A model turned artist, Valadon devoted her career to the subject she knew best – the nude. As a lower-class woman and single mother, she must have assumed that she had nothing to lose. She audaciously exhibited male nudes at an important art Salon in Paris. Shocked, one critic called her an “old slut,” but that didn’t deter her. We will examine Valadon’s male nudes in paintings and in drawings. We will see how this artist became an active agent of her own sexuality and depicted the male body as shaped by her own desires.
Week 5: Painting Pleasure

In her representations of the nude, Émilie Charmy explored female sexuality in paint. Often, she used her own body in lieu of a model’s creating daring self-portraits. Painting the female nude in a sensual manner with opulent brushwork and vivid color, she captured both a visual and tactile representation of the body. We will learn why Charmy hid some of her work from the public and where it can be found today. We will examine Charmy’s paintings up close and discover how a woman painted pleasure one century ago.
Week 1: In Search of a Painting

When I first saw a reproduction of Marie Vassilieff’s Homme et Femme, a double-sided depiction of male and female Cubist nudes, I was determined to find the painting. This was the start of a three-year quest all over France and beyond. As we retrace my journey, we will study this lesser-known artist and the significance of her work. We will uncover her Cubist paintings, unknown to the public, which I found in private collections. We will learn what a woman artist risked a century ago by painting male nudes and challenging gender norms.
Week 3: Defying Gender

Travel back in time to Suzanne Valadon’s world in Montmartre. A model turned artist, Valadon devoted her career to the subject she knew best – the nude. As a lower-class woman and single mother, she must have assumed that she had nothing to lose. She audaciously exhibited male nudes at an important art Salon in Paris. Shocked, one critic called her an “old slut,” but that didn’t deter her. We will examine Valadon’s male nudes in paintings and in drawings. We will see how this artist became an active agent of her own sexuality and depicted the male body as shaped by her own desires.
Week 2: The Androgynous Doll

In 1915, Marie Vassilieff pioneered a new kind of art form – the portrait doll. They represented various personalities of interwar Paris – Picasso, Matisse, Josephine Baker, and the artist herself. Vassilieff’s dolls were not merely craft – she considered her creations as works of art. As we examine her dolls, we will consider their role as objets d’art and the breakdown of artistic hierarchies they imply. We will learn about the Dada movement and the women involved. We will discuss the signification of the doll itself – its traditional link with femininity and discover the ways in which Vassilieff upends its meaning.
Week 4: The Model's Gaze

As a former model, Valadon was acutely aware of the gaze – how the body is typically displayed as an object for male viewers – but she was also perceptive to the ways class and gender shape identity and subjectivity. From her unique and embodied vantage point, which I call the model’s gaze, Valadon reclaimed woman as subject. She painted female bodies that do not conform to standard ideals of beauty. She then turned the model’s gaze on herself. Toward the end of her career, she captured her aging body with a truthful and unflattering eye in the first known old-age nude self-portrait. We will look at Valadon’s female nudes and nude self-portraits and discuss the poignant ways in which they resonate with gender theory formulated over half a century later.
Week One: Women, Art and Society during the Renaissance"

We'll take a look at the world in which these artists were born into and the obstacles they faced, with a focus on women's lives in 16th century Florence.
Week Three: Fede Galizia & Elisabetta Sirani

Fede Galizia (c.1578– c.1630) was a successful still life painter when the subject itself was in its nascence, but her most compelling painting is a supposed self portrait in the guise of Judith holding the head of Holofernes. Elisabetta Sirani (1638 –1665) lived and worked in Bologna where she established a successful studio and became the breadwinner of the family. She was prolific and produced over 200 paintings during her short life.
Week Two: Sofonisba Anguissola

We'll trace the life and oeuvre of Sofonisba Anguissola (c.1532–1625) who was an apprentice to Michelangelo and later a court painter to King Philip II of Spain. She is argued to be the first woman artist to attain international fame.
Week 6: Judith & Holofernes

Judith was a beautiful Jewish widow who saved her people by beheading the Assyrian general, Holofernes. This subject, depicted countless times by male artists during the Renassance and Baroque periods, became a popular subject for women artists as well. However, the story carried a separate meaning for artists and viewers of different gender. We will study numerous examples of this subject to see how women artists brought this decaptiation scene to life and spotlighted Judith as a courageous heroine.
Week 5: Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–c.1656) attained unprecedented fame and international success in the 17th century. She was the first woman to gain membership into the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence in 1616, and around 1639, she lived and worked in the court of Charles I of England. As stated by curators of the Artemisia exhibition at the National Gallery, "Artemisia painted subjects that were traditionally the preserve of male artists and for the male gaze; transforming meek maidservants into courageous conspirators and victims into survivors."
Week Four: Lavinia Fontana

Lavinia Fontana (1552–1614) achieved professional success, not in court or convent as her female predecessors had done, but in direct competition with male artists in her own city of Bologna. She was prolific and she painted portraits, altarpieces, private devotional works and mytholgoical paintings. Around 150 of her paintings survive today. The mother of 11 children, she supported her entire family financially, including her husband.

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Self-portrait at the Easel Painting a De

Fontana Self Portrait at the Spinet Acco

Self-portrait_as_the_Allegory_of_Paintin

Fede-Galizia-1578-1630-Cherries-in-a-sil

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Saturdays at 10:30 am pm est, February 27-April 3

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Held on the same day and time each week, each session is 90 minutes.
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Lauren's Paris

Virtual Art Seminar

Renaissance & Baroque Women Artists

"I will show Your Illustrious Lordship what a woman can do" - Artemisia Gentileschi

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